The Last of the Windy Willows Love Letters
by katherine-with-a-k
Summary: Only one more year till Anne and Gilbert can finally marry, and just when they are ready to settle down the world opens up for them. Each will face their own bend in the road, but how do they decide which path to take? The last of the Letters is about what happens AFTER you've fallen in love...
1. Birds eggs and bees wings

_**Hello** **Letter readers,**_

 _ **If you're new to this story you might like to read The Windy Willow Love Letters and More Windy Willows Love Letters first. In this final installment Gilbert is now in his final year at Med school and the countdown to their wedding begins. But first we have a misunderstanding from the previous story to unravel...**_

 _ **With love and gratitude to L.M.M. ~everything is hers, only this idea is mine.**_

 **...**

 **THE LAST OF THE WINDY WILLOWS LOVE LETTERS  
**

 **'I was afraid Gilbert would insist on rushing off to the ends of the earth when he got through college, and dragging you with him.'**

 **'If everyone stayed where they were born places would soon be filled up, Mrs Lynde.'**

 **'Oh, I'm not going to argue with you, Anne. I am not a B.A.'** **Chapter 3,** **Anne's House of Dreams**

 **...**

 **Chapter one**

 ** _Green Gables_**

 ** _Avonlea_**

 ** _P.E.I._**

 ** _July 1st, 1889_**

 _My dearest Gilbert,_

 _So I am home and learning how to be Anne of Green Gables again. Anne with tight sleeved gingham frocks and wide staring eyes that never want to close lest they miss the flight of a single blossom petal. I'm not describing myself so much as the gold haired urchin who has come with me. She insists on being introduced as Miss Elizabeth and how can I refuse when I longed to be called Cordelia at her age? I am seeing the Island through eleven year old eyes again, laughing and crying with an eleven year old soul and I think... I think my publishers were right, Gil. I am going (more to the point, I have begun) to rewrite Iona of Harris Island as a children's book. Though I bristle at that description, as though books for children were less important than books for everyone else. I want this to be a sacred and beloved adventure, with as many scrapes and dreams as I can cram into each page ~and you know I can cram in a lot! But a child longs to read such things, don't you think? About people who suck all the marrow from life instead of dutifully nibbling their portion. _

_It's why I love you, after all.  
_

 _I'm sorry to make you wait so long for that sentence. Even sorrier to make you doubt how unstoppable my love for you is. How has it happened that we are standing again in the land of crossed purposes, wanting to make sense of each other and failing horribly? I won't put words in your mouth (a mouth that is very much missed) and explain you away. Your actions need no explanation, Gil. It's me who has been nonsensical._

 _I once wrote to you that I have a lot of catching up to do. It's no secret that you loved me the longer, so I felt bound to love you the fiercer; gorging on you with an appetite that only grew, not wanting to see it was me who was being consumed. All I could think of was getting into your arms, and remaining there for as long as I could in whatever way I could manage. There was no music I wanted to hear but the sigh you made as I kissed your neck, no heat that could touch me but what I felt when I pressed my whole self against you. There were no days except the days between your letters, no dreams except the ones where I lay by your side. Everything else I would tick off like a to-do list, I can scarcely remember Sam's christening at all._

 _I felt so ashamed as I read your letter because I realised I had stopped seeing what was possible of the world, only what was inevitable. While you have been spending what little free time you had imagining the tangle your life would be in if you were Walter Shirley, or Mr Rasmussen, or even Fred, I've been dreaming away in my tower thinking only of how much I longed for you. I'm not even sure what I expected to happen that evening at Patterson St. I would say I wanted to be as close as two people can be, forgetting we are not only two souls, but two bodies._

 _I told myself the night was all that mattered. But really it's the morning. The morning we have nowhere to be but with each other and nothing to keep us apart. To have to watch you scramble for your clothes and leave through an open window, I couldn't bear it, Gil. I would have lived every day since that moment knowing I'd made a candle of the sun._

 _Perhaps I wouldn't have realised this if you hadn't removed yourself from my reach. It forced me to confront the woman I am when there is no Gilbert to take up all my thoughts. I am relearning her ambitions, dusting off her dreams, and remembering the girl I used to be when I wasn't so sure of us. She doesn't need protecting, Gil. That is to say, I don't. I can and do take care of myself, and I want so much to take care of you. Instead I feel I am adding to your troubles._

 _I hate to think of you staring at the ceiling of some hotel with the unpromising name of Three Weeds wondering if I love you. I never knew such a tiny word could inflict such hurt. The only way I can write this now is to tell myself that the 'if' you wrote wasn't a questioning if but a conditional one. So let the proof of my love be in the writing. And since this will not reach you for the best part of a month then I shall make it such a letter, one that beats with the heart of an Avonlea Summer. Only not for too long. I want to send this as soon as I may so that you have the chance to write back to me before this season has done all she means to do and beckons her Autumn sister._

 _I am sitting under our birch tree, the lilies are in bloom and the air is fat with the scent of them. Beside me is Miss Elizabeth, who is writing a letter to her father ~though we haven't an address for him. Can you imagine doing such a thing to a child? She is never sure from one month to the next where her Papa might be. I used to wonder which was worse, Katherine who never had anyone, or Elizabeth, who has a family but one that wishes she didn't exist. When she arrived in Avonlea she told me she meant to spend every day outdoors so that she could "get all the noise inside her outside her." You may think any child would feel the same, but her idea of noise isn't a battle cry or a skipping chant. It's a sneeze, a prayer, it's brushing the tangles from her hair. How can a child brush her hair too loudly? How can a child be a child in that house?_

 _I was expecting her to give Davy some competiton ~this is going to make me sound ancient but Davy has grown so tall, his great big boots seem to be always blocking the back porch and tripping someone up. He causes more commotion that he makes these days~ but the loudest sound Elizabeth makes is, 'Ohhhh...' She floats about the meadows and orchards with her eyes and her mouth full open, endeavouring to fill all her lonely places with birds eggs and bees wings._

 _You see why she reminds me of me. Since my return I feel as though I've been following the ghost of my younger self. It's a rare and wonderful bliss to be able to walk our paths, sit under our tree, and not be pierced with the pain of missing you. Elizabeth and I walk pre-Gilbertian lands, sometimes we even discover a patch that is pre-Diana. Yesterday Marilla said that Elizabeth is the only other child she has known who could peer at a flower for more than ten minutes together._

 _'We're not peering at each other, Miss Cuthbert,' my fairy fay said to her, 'this rose and I are conversing.'_

 _Had I said that at Elizabeth's age I would have been given a stern moral lesson about the dangers of wishing things other than they are, or something suitably improving. Instead Marilla took the trouble to get on her knees and ask what the creamy petalled Ayrshire Queen was whispering to her!_

 _This evening we are dining at the Pines for the last time. I'm unsure if you know this yet but the Wrights offer on the Penhallow place has been accepted. It has the most kingly willow midway down the drive. Alice, Ruby, and I would weave crowns and butterfly wings from its waxy green whips and gleefully dance in Midsummer. Of course, we had to do it at dawn rather than the witching hour. By the time we were old enough to stay out late the girls had all grown out of it. But Diana assures me that if Miss Elizabeth ever returns we may camp out there all night. Though I haven't told Elizabeth this. Knowing how much she's like me, there's a fair chance she won't sleep the next year in excitement!_

 ** _Later..._**

 _I confess when I wrote that last sentence it wasn't Elizabeth I imagined sleeping outdoors with. Fortunately having that little angel at my elbow all day keeps me from diving headlong into sticky remembrances of you. She's here right now, her hair like sunbeams across my pillow, her eyes in little smiles as she sleeps. At Evergreen she is afraid of the dark and all the murky things that threaten to come out of it, but here she says the night is her friend. I'm sure it wasn't the night that brought her, so much as the bloodcurdling screech Rachel made when she stubbed her bare toe on Davy's boots on the way to the outhouse. Elizabeth appeared at my door looking just like those dimpled cupids you see in advertisements for soap. Her little nightgown falling off her shoulder, her cheeks like apples from sleep. She slipped in beside me and twirled the ends of my braid over her lips. I could picture you so clearly, giving me a look as if to say we shouldn't encourage children into our bed, and then nestling next to her wee, warm body and falling into sleep.  
_

 _I so long for our own family, Gilbert. I want to hold our babies in my arms and know them and love them. I want them to feel they can come to their Mother and share their fears and their woes and know they won't be laughed at or talked out of them. I will never do that, Gil. I know what it's like to have troubles belittled. As though small people's troubles must also be small. A corn cob doll that was given to the dog, a beloved dictionary used to stop up a hole in the wall, the last pane of glass in a battered cabinet kicked in; these are not small things but entire worlds. You can't expect a child to lose their world and not want to lose themselves, too._

 _I can't write easily anymore. Elizabeth is gripping my arm as she sleeps and muttering softly, 'Tomorrow, Papa, is it tomorrow, is it tomorrow now?'_

 _I'll see you in my own sweet tomorrow, my love._

 _Always and all ways,_

 _Anne_

 ** _..._**

 ** _* Iona of Harris Island first mentioned in chapter 6, The Windy Willows Love Letters_**

 ** _* Sam's christening first mentioned in chapter 8, More Windy Willows Love Letters_**

 ** _* Mr Rasmussen (aka The Fox) is Gilbert's room mate_**

 ** _* the 'If' Anne is hurt by refers to the line of Gilbert's last letter, "...if you love me then please write back.'_**

 ** _* Evergreen is in Summerside, next door to Windy Willows_**

 ** _Thank you as ever for reading, the Windy Willows world is fresh in my mind but it may not be in yours so if there is something you're not sure of please let me know._**

 ** _love, k.  
_**


	2. Vital and honourable

**Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to leave such heartfelt reviews. I have no regrets about heading back to Letterland before starting my new story. I'm loving the chance to discover who these two are when they are not 'gazing at each other, but looking outward in the same direction.** _ **'**_

 _ **With love and gratitude to L.M.M. ~everything is hers, only this idea is mine**_

 **Chapter two**

 **The Shamrock, Thistle & Rose Hotel**

 **Keep Street**

 **Sarnia, Ontario**

 ** _July 30th  
_**

 _My girl, my girl, my glorious girl,_

 _What a letter was waiting for me. I guessed its arrival long before it was placed in my hands. As I walked down Keep Street such a wind blew up with the strength of the sea and the smell of the pines, it almost blew me off my feet. I felt in my bones that word from you had come at last. And it was you, sweetheart, the Anne I had fallen for all those years ago, wide eyed, reverent and unlike any soul I'd known. One who knows how much I am missing an Avonlea summer. As I read your letter I could feel the birch trunk against my back, smell the air as it shifts through your hair, and in those few brief moments I was home.  
_

 _It's terrific to hear you are writing again. Though I'd have known even if you hadn't said so, it always shows when your head is in a story. I was reminded of an afternoon I caught sight of you at the graveyard. You were telling Matthew about something you were working on, and I said to myself, Blythe, you'll need more than one lifetime to discover all the Annes inside that girl. You know I have my favourites, but the Anne who wrote to me on July 1st will always be my first love.  
_

 _About that weekend in May, we were never at crossed purposes. I knew what you were longing for because I'm longing for it, too. But you're right about one thing, it would never have done me hightailing out the Blake's window (though they do have a door.) I want far more for us than that, why else would I be here if not for our House of Dreams. Remember what I said about wanting you and wanting our home, that I can't have one without the other? I made a promise to you when I put that ring on your finger and I don't intend for you to marry the kind of man who breaks his promise. Even if it almost breaks me to keep it.  
_

 _So what is it like here? Like nowhere I've been before. First off let me reassure you there is nothing at all unpromising about the place I'm staying in. As you would have noted in the address above, The Three Weeds is merely the common name for a most uncommon hotel. I'm sleeping the finest room I've ever stepped foot in -though don't tell Mam I said that._

 _I wish you and Mam had the chance to see each other this summer. I expect you've heard through the Avonlea grapevine that Uncle Dave has now recovered. Not that this has any bearing on Aunt Pearl. She's determined 'her Doctor Dave' will retire and wants to move to NB. Not because she is particularly fond of the place, because she doesn't trust her husband not to take a case or two if they remain on the Island. I pity the fellow who takes over his practice. Not only does Uncle Dave see all Glen St Mary but a good portion of Upper Glen and Lowbridge as well. John-Paul Crawford lay in the parlour for two days with a broken foot waiting for my uncle to come back from NB rather than have another doctor look at it. It's a curious town, the Glen. I used to imagine living there once -the once that didn't have you in it- now it makes me laugh to think I could ever be satisfied with so small a life._

 _Which brings me back to The Shamrock, Thistle and Rose, or Three Weeds as they call it here, and why I'm sleeping in a bed as ornate and ancient looking as the one Priss and Stella used to fight over. It's all due to Lord Anson Hulme and he's as eccentric as the hotel I'm living in. Picture Jeremiah Pye with even wilder eyebrows and teeth of gold not wood. Hulme is one of those gentleman scholars who travel the world and write papers for the Royal Society as a hobby. He was once obsessed with fossils and before that butterflies (according to his valet he nearly lost his life in the Amazon trying to find some rare blue moth.) Now engineering has caught his fancy. It's Hulme's money behind this tunnel construction, and when it's complete it will be the first of its kind in North America. A tunnel being dug directly under a body of water. It's one thing to read about it in the papers, but to see it, Anne. The tunneling shield is a marvel, allowing the men to excavate in a cast iron vault of compressed air. Which is where yours truly comes in._

 _Turns out I'm not here to support the medics at the field hospital. I was selected to assist Lord Hulme -or rather his physicians- who are making a study of caisson disease, or what's come to be known as the Bends. It has a terrible effect on the sandhogs (they're the fellows doing the digging). At least one in three men become doubled over and riddled with pain after working beneath the lake bed and we are trying to discover its physiological cause at a cellular level. The theory is it's got something to do with air density outside the body having an effect on air density inside the body. Every day we are finding a new piece to the puzzle. You won't believe it but it was my background at the Daily that ultimately got me the position. I'm in charge of interviewing the men after their shifts, sometimes I'm even permitted to examine a few. They happily tolerate me, the Bends is no joke, they want it cured as much as we do. I assumed Hulme was only motivated by money because nursing all those patients costs a pretty penny, one his Company is obliged to pay. But he has no interest in the bottom line. It's the mystery that inspires him, solving the riddle. I suppose that's why we get on so well. The moment I arrived and was brought before him I told him plainly I couldn't afford such rich digs. He replied that he couldn't afford for me to be badly fed or rested. It was my brain he was after, he said, declaring the best minds require a full stomach and a full night's sleep and that if I couldn't pay for them the Company would!  
_

 _I'm on the sixth floor, though the view from my window is nothing special. There is one fellow here, a scientist by the name of Melhop (picture Billy Andrews with unexceptional ears and a plum coloured nose) who has lived in Sarnia all his life. He's always showing me the sights, a dank tract of forest, a tar coloured lake, expecting me to fall into swoons. Eventually I had to tell him that I came from the Island so it would take a lot more than a house-sized swarm of black fly to impress me. I meant what I said about missing summer back home, especially the things that can't be seen, the smell of red earth, a crystalline breeze. Forgive me talking about the weather but it's wretchedly humid here. The hotel laundress knows me by name. I only brought four shirts and it takes three to get through one day. The air here tastes like a cross between the Kingsport fish market and old coal sacks. When I return to my room and wash up for supper the bowl is grey with soot.  
_

 _Living in a place like this I understand why you saw Avonlea as a paradise. I'm hoping her tender beauties may feature in this book you're writing. I realise it's about another Island entirely, still something tells me when I have your words in my hands I might recognise a few landmarks. A lake with water so bright it shines, or a glaring blue hall perhaps? Now I feel it, the old familiar ache that comes of missing you. I know I've hardly sold Sarnia as an impressive destination but I can see you in this place, Anne. There's something of the pioneering spirit that lives out here, which you'll have to admit is sorely lacking in Avonlea. The people I've met, the discussions we have, being neck deep in vital and honourable work. It excites and fuels me the way Redmond never has.  
_

 _I'll have to end this now, though I don't want to. When I write to you I fool myself into believing you are next to me. Soon enough I'm gazing like a love sick loon at your photograph, with its permament smudge on the glass where I am always trying to draw back that one curl, before I recollect that your real face isn't sepia and one inch wide._

 _I'm about to call on the widow of a man called Flaherty. He was first rate sandhog, a giant of a man, who died suddenly last night. You see why I wish you were with me. I don't know what to say to Mrs Flaherty and I doubt she'll want to talk to me. But you'd know how to manage it, you have this way of making everything right with the world. I can easily imagine the rapture on Elizabeth's face because I remember yours. When you wrote about her little gaping mouth I had to smile. I'm not sure this is something you'll want to hear, but Josie used to say that you floated over the fields like a basking shark because your mouth was permanently open. Your eyes though, told a different story. Miss Lavendar said you have the eyes of an old soul, one who had seen more than she should have at such a young age. The Flahertys have a daughter and now that daughter has no father. To her I will just some stranger in a damp shirt asking her sad mama more questions. I don't want to be that man and if you were here I wouldn't be. You'd have her on your knee in a matter of moments and probably have a smile out of her by the end of the visit. Or her tears. You've never been afraid of tears and I am learning not be._

 _Only one more pearl to go, my love.  
_

 _Gilbert_

 ** _..._**

 ** _* quote in the AN by Antoine de St Exupery_**

 ** _* reference to Anne talking to Matthew from chapter 1, Redmond Diaries -the second year  
_**

 ** _* Aunt Pearl and 'her Doctor Dave' first mentioned in chapter 9, Redmond Diaries -the fourth year_**

 ** _* NB is New Brunswick (where Gilbert's cousins live)  
_**

 ** _* Priss and Stella's bed first mentioned in ch 6 Redmond Diaries -the second year_**


	3. Apple-mint and thyme

**Chapter three**

 _ **Green Gables**_

 _ **Avonlea, PEI**_

 _ **August 27th**_

 _My Vital and Honourable Man,_

 _That's just who you are, the Gil of the kitchen step, who sat across from me in debates, avenged Moody, was victorious at Rush Week, claimed countless prizes and was ALWAYS the last to leave the Philomathic because you would never give up the case for existence preceding essence -or was that me? Your letter was brimful of brio and confidence. I'm so glad for you, darling, and relieved. I've spent the best part of two months convinced you were sleeping in a hovel with drunkards and bedbugs all for the sake of our House of Dreams. What I feel for you, what you have gained for yourself, I wouldn't want it any other way, not for all the summers in Avonlea!_

 _As to people of Sarnia, all I really want to know is how you fared with the Flahertys. As for your summer there; a tar coloured lake? Surely you're not referring to our exalted Lake Huron? Where on earth is this tunnel situated, in some parallel colourless clime? I can't help compare your words to Paul's, who passed through Sarnia when his term ended in early June~_

 _"I am writing this close by the river, the St Clair, on a bank. The setting sun, a great blood-red hall, is just descending on the Michigan shore, throwing a bright crimson track across the water where I stand. It is a still, moist, voluptuous evening, the twilight deepening apace. In the vapours fly bats and myriad insects. A solitary robin calls, the panting of the locomotive comes from the shore and occasionally an abrupt snort or screech, diffused in space. With all these utilitarian episodes is a soft, voluptuous scene. A procession of long drawn out, delicious half lights till a long rose touched with grey falls on everything..."  
_

 _Shall I give you a moment to catch your breath? And that was merely what he jotted down on the back of a postcard! Beautiful boy. Though I'm forbidden to call him that. Not at Paul's insistance, at Katherine's. She thinks it ridiculous that I am calling a 6' 3', broad shouldered, square jawed youth, a boy. I suppose if one were looking at him dispassionately then he would appear much older than his eighteen years. To me he will always be that sweet faced angel with a red lipped mouth and a halo of chestnut curls._

 _I did a very good impersonation of that basking shark when I first saw him. The Irvings wrote in April that they wouldn't be coming to Echo Lodge this year. I happened to be there because Mr Irving asked me to make certain Jerry Buote mowed the lawns. Last October, in the midst of that Indian Summer ~ Paul calls it the "wondrous second wind"~ a sudden fork of lightening struck the back garden and the Lodge nearly burned to the ground. The grass had grown almost four foot high, it was Jerry's job to keep it low and he'd forgotten all about it. Well, he made up for it this year, the poor lawns were almost brown they'd been cut shorn so short. Katherine had arrived a few days before and I'm afraid I built up the splendours of Miss Lavendar's garden to paradisical status. I was attempting to excuse its dessication when my very proper Miss Brooke stopped short and blazed bright red._

 _'Who- who is that? Not Jerry Buote?' she stammered._

 _You've met Katherine, Gilbert, so you'll know how improbable it was to hear her quiver like that. That was why I was looking at her and not to the person she was pointing at. Imagine my shock when Paul sauntered toward us, his trousers rolled up, her shirt unbuttoned, and a long stem of timothy between his lips._

 _'Hello Teacher,' he said, as though we met like this every afternoon._

 _The next thing I knew he was enveloping me in two mighty sized, sun warmed arms, and swinging me round the potager so that as my feet grazed over the herbs the air was filled with the fragrance of lavender, apple-mint and thyme. Such a delicious way to greet an old friend! He offered to swing Katherine too, merely as a tease, but I don't think Katherine knew this as she went from scarlet to purple. Poor darling, I doubt she'd seen a man in such a state of undress. So I summoned my teacherly manner (it had gone a bit rusty) and ordered him to be the good host and offer us some refreshment ~and perhaps button up his shirt. Oh Gil, I wish you could have seen it; made of an ivory silk with a high collar and ballooning sleeves, as though he had come from another era and not the hammock between the birch trees._

 _Katherine said as much later in the cool of the house. Her head was in my lap and she was running an ice chip over her lips and murmuring half to me half to herself that she thought the ghost of Lord Byron had come to life. This was before she had any idea he was a poet! Not that he describes himself as such. Paul has completed his final year at high school and won places at Harvard ~no surprises there~ Oxford, Sapienza, Sorbonne, the list goes on. Though he assures me he means to turn them all down. He intends to become (don't laugh) a 'student of the world', which seems to go along the lines of living alone in nature like Thoreau, running off to the Dutch East Indies like Rimbaud, and dying of tuberculosis like Keats. Or as my dreamy boy put it:_

 _"If I want to be a poet, Teacher, then I must first disorder my senses. Every form of love, of suffering, of madness I must look for in myself; consuming all the poison contained in me, keeping only its quintessence, so that I may become the great patient, the great criminal, the great accursed, and the great learned one, among men!"_

 _Somehow I don't think this is what Mr Irving had in mind for his son when he enrolled him at The Boston Latin School. But instead of pulling him down to earth Paul Irving makes me want to soar. I remember that Anne, the dreamy girl you call your first love, the one whose ambitions flitted with swallows and departed with them, too. Now they have returned this blessed summer, for me and for you, and I feel... oh, Gilbert I feel as though I can fly!_

 _ **August 29th**_

 _Hello Beloved,_

 _Paul and Katherine have decided to stay on at White Sands and I find myself here at Green Gables, a lone Musketeer, gazing out my window to where the Snow Queen once stood trying in vain to write poetry. It infuriates me the way Paul can conjure it so easily, though perhaps what truly annoys me is the way he teases me for my schoolmarmish ways. I was reading through the set text for senior English this year when he whisked it from my hands and stuffed it down his shirt. Poor Mrs Gaskell, I doubt she knew where to look that time.  
_

 _'You need to think less as the HEAD, and more as the MISTRESS!' he said, to which I pinched his perfect nose (there wasn't a slate to hand) and informed him that I was scandalising Avonlea when he was still in rompers._

 _Still, it makes me think. Have I become too predictable in my thinking, or worse, confined? I read over your words and almost discern your heartbeat thrumming through each syllable. You sound alive to the world, so alert to its promise, and aware of your part to play. I hope you don't mind but I read out your account of Sarnia to Paul and it thrilled him utterly because he believed you had got to a truth.  
_

 _'I just sat on the shore and watched the world go by, Teacher, Gilbert Blythe is living it!'_

 _I felt so fiercely proud because most people only congratulate me when I tell them what you do._

 _'Oh, a doctor' they say, 'what a good catch.'_

 _How I long to shake them and shout, He is far more than that! To have to sit in a sewing circle and listen to Pyes telling me how well I've done. I think I pierced my finger clean through on Monday, having to smile politely as Gertie (she is calling herself Gertrude now, but I never shall!) announced to the quilting bee that you were a perfect slave to me as a boy, and are now comprehensively under the thumb._

 _Even Diana laughed at that, though she told me she was coughing up a coconut flake. Naturally I didn't bother opposing such opinion because this is Avonlea and we know how that would go. But I have another reason, and that is the TRUE you, the one who had bird bones on his mantel and stood before me in the cavern and wanted to kick the Blake's door down, is MINE alone. An adventurer, a pioneer, a man who said to a peer of the realm, No I will not stay where you want me to stay. (By the bye Gil, you will pay your share won't you? I'd rather you were staying in a flea ridden hovel than owe a Lord one penny.) When you told me how easily you could picture me at your side, the seventh wave broke over me. I never realised until then that the WHERE of our House of Dreams isn't important, all that matters is that I am with you. So take me to Sarnia, Dakota, Hokkaido, Xinjiang, Bishkek, Leskovac, Corsica, New York or any other place situated on the 43rd parallel if you must. All I require is something to write on, something to write with, the merest bit of roof... and you!_

 _ **September 1st  
**_

 _Last night Paul, Katherine and I said our goodbyes to each other and to the Summer. Paul is for Harvard ~and was very surprised at our lack of it when he announced his decision~ Katherine is for Redmond and a secretarial course that will put in her the path of globetrotting tycoons and explorers, and I am back to the High. I'm not looking forward to this year without my Vice but I refuse to dwell on that now. Let me tell you about the night._

 _We camped out, Gil, under the Queenly willow. I had thought it a King, but I was young then and hadn't learned how to perceive her feminine powers. I haven't decided whether to tell Elizabeth this when her wee heart is set on the two of us sleeping there. She has so little to look forward to, and I know that part of her anticipation lies in neither of us having slept under the stars before. Truth be told it won't be my first, in certain kinds of rain I still feel the deep bone ache from a frozen night in March. Not that Elizabeth has to know this. Besides I ended the camp-out in the Wright's spare room, but I'm getting ahead of myself._

 _We decided on a bonfire because farewelling the Summer, and thanking her, seemed as fine a reason as any to build a good blaze. Diana was there and Fred and the children, but only till half past eight. Then they kissed we 'three fools' as Fred called us and tucked Fred Jr and Small Anne-Cordelia, and I suspect their sleepy selves, into bed. Instead of watching the embers die down as we averred with solemn nods we would, Paul dragged a load of hazel switches onto the fire and we listened to its flicks and hisses as it feasted on the wood and licked the willow's lowest leaves._

 _I made wreaths for us all, and though Katherine refused to dance she did wear one for a while. How it suited her, with her amber eyes and scarlet dress she looked like a Celtic goddess. When I told her this Paul said he would summon Apollo, and in the gold of the flames he really did look like the sun. It was decided that I should be Hestia ~for the fire I was tending, I suppose. Not that I remained there for long. Paul had me tightly by my arms and spun me round so quickly that with the heat and the smoke and the little supper I ate I began to feel unwell. But it wasn't his fault, youth never knows its own strength. The tiger that prowled in you now prowls in him._

 _Tyger Tyger burning bright_

 _In the forest of the night..._

 _Did he smile his work to see_

 _Did he who made the lamb make thee?_

 _Was this what Blake was meaning when he wrote those lines? They've been beating through my brain all day because I cannot reconcile my little chestnut curled lamb with this pacing, sinuous being he has become. I don't know whether I want to laugh at him or at myself. But I think it's the not knowing that matters, don't you? The mystery that enchants you enchants me, too. Oh, there is a phrase by Keats that says it perfectly but I find it's suddenly gone from my head. If you think of it please relieve this Head Mistress from her muddleheadedness and let me know. Until then I shall pack away my summer, this penultimate Green Gables Summer, in my old carpet bag, and bow down to the will of September._

 _Prowlingly yours,_

 _Anne_

 ** _..._**

 ** _* 'Gil on the stone step' refers to the scene in chapter 7, Anne of Avonlea where he told Anne he had decided to become a doctor._**

 ** _* Gilbert avenged Moody in ch 7 , Redmond Diaries -the second year_**

 ** _* 'Existence precedes essence' from 17th century philosopher, Mulla Sadra_**

 ** _* first quote from the diary of Walt Whitman in Canada_**

 ** _* second quote from the same_**

 ** _* third quote from a letter by Rimbaud_**

 ** _* bird bones on the mantel first mentioned in ch 4 Redmond Diaries -the fourth year._**

 ** _* the cavern first mentioned in ch 4 More Windy Willows Lover Letters_**

 ** _* the Blake's door first mentioned in ch 10 More Windy Willows Love Letters_**

 ** _* Hestia is goddess of the hearth. Apollo was in love with her, but she vowed to remain a virgin_**

 ** _* fourth quote from William Blake's Songs of_ _Experience_**

 ** _* All quotes mangled for the sake of brevity  
_**

 ** _I'm glad you are enjoying the sorts of conversations Anne and Gilbert have when they are not thinking of ripping each other's clothes off. Even so Anne's spirit has always been expressed through the sensual and I am hoping the appearance of Paul makes for slightly uncomfortable reading. Thanks again for all your comments, I hope you know (and notice) how much it influences my writing._**

 ** _k._**


	4. Uncertainty and doubt

**Chapter four**

 _ **Harvey House**_

 _ **Redmond**_

 _ **Kingsport, N.S.**_

 _ **September 2nd  
**_

 _Greetings O Dryad!  
_

 _The phrase you are wanting is Negative Capability, and after receiving a letter like that I believe ol' Keats would be mighty impressed with mine. As I read about my girl whirling about the fire there were a good many things I wanted to know, but the man who loves Anne Shirley must be capable of remaining in uncertainty and doubt. So I will content myself with the image you gave me and offer you one of my own.  
_

 _Picture a certain third year medical student pummeling his pillow, slumping into a grimey armchair, and pacing about the floor. No mystery there, Miss Shirley, I am describing myself. Though not at this particular moment, I haven't yet developed the skill of writing and walking that you were born with. If I did I might have walked myself out of Redmond altogether. Instead I'm about to melt into my chair. I've had to move my desk away from the fire to a dank little corner spattered with mildew (if this wall was a body I would diagnose shingles) but you won't find me releasing one button, or heaven forbid removing my tie._

 _Please inform Diana that if she really is determined for you to have as many doilies as she did when she married she might like to stitch the phrase, 'Remember you are a gentlemen, Blythe!' onto one, lest I forget. It's possible I'm only saying this in order to have the pleasure of burning it, and as the pompous dandy across the room tosses another log on the fire I have a good idea how that doily might feel. Anne, I believe this last year at Redmond may be my toughest yet. I've had the worst news. Because that same pompous dandy -otherwise known as Norcross- is to be my new room mate. _

_If you're not familiar with the fellow that's intentional. I never let my thoughts stray to Robin Norcross if I can manage it. He is something of a rival. Pathology, neurology, histology, gynaecology, if the discipline has an 'ology' in it then Norcross is unassailable. I'm hardly the sort to despise a worthy foe, but this man cannot win gracefully. He considers his strengths the height of human accomplishment, and my own (surgery, obstetrics, chemistry, clinic) the sort of thing any nurse or apothecary should be able to master. You know our placings are listed by the common room every Sunday, well if happen to be outdone then it's, 'Not to worry Blythe, there's always some barge looking for a butcher, they may even take you!' But if I should best him he'll prance past me saying, ' I wouldn't crow about managing to do what any crone can do.' Then he'll look about to see if anyone is laughing at what he considers a great joke and is met with silence. He hasn't one chum that I know of, and I don't mean to be his first. You have the Pyes, Anne, and I have Norcross.  
_

 _This afternoon I staggered through the door after a three day journey from Sarnia only to be socked in the face by a wall of heat. When I opened my eyes I saw a pair of bright white spatts jutting out from my favourite chair. My heart sank. This was the sort of foppish footware The Fox mocked other fellows for wearing. I knew what that meant, but before I could put my thoughts into words Norcross cracked his newspaper and said in his unnervingly soft voice, 'Do close the door, Blythe, there's a good chap,' and announced with undisguised glee that Mr Rassmussen had been removed from Redmond at his father's request and sent to some Mission in Whitehorse. I barely had time to lug my trunk inside when Norcross emits the sort teeth-sucking squeak Mrs Harmon Andrews makes when someone dares sit before she has. I turned to find a book in my face -his arm was at full stretch, he can't be more than 5' 4"- and was ordered to have its contents memorised by the end of the week.  
_

 _'I'd say by the end of the day, Blythe, but I know you're not the sharpest tool.'  
_

 _It was the Redmond Code of Conduct, which hasn't been revised for forty years. According to Norcross we are to attend chapel every morning in full morning dress including top hat (which you know I don't have, though Christine always threated to buy me one), maintain strict observance of meals times, curfew, bedroom attire, and the most archane rule of all, have clearly defined room boundaries.  
_

 _'This is mine,' he said, and presents me with a neat pen and ink diagram of 'his' side of the room, which includes the door and the fireplace. 'And that,' he continued smugly, 'is yours.'_

 _'So you want me to enter by the window?' I asked him. 'Suits me.'_

 _I went to yank it open and get some air into the place. Anne, he had nailed it shut -or rather had someone nail it shut. I doubt Norcross would know what a hammer was.  
_

 _'Naturally you may approach the door -though whether I allow you to enter is at my discretion.'_

 _I think that was another attempt at a joke._

 _'And if I refuse to agree to all this?' I said._

 _'You can't refuse, Blythe, these are the rules, the breaking of which will lead to your suspension and ultimately your expulsion. I doubt you want that.'_

 _But he does. I see it plainly in his watery little eyes. I know exactly why he requested a room with me. I'm the only other student who might take top honours and he wants me out of the way. I should take it as a compliment, but I don't. This means war.  
_

 ** _September 3rd  
_**

 _Good morning Goddess,_

 _No chapel for me as I intend to go to early evening service at Rev. Jo's church and then over to Patterson St for supper. Phil's invitation contains a P.S. begging me to excuse the chaos. They've bought the little terrace house nextdoor and are knocking them together. Something tells me Sam may soon become a big brother. It seems so strange. We used to be the same, Jo, Fred and I, fretting over yields or exams or whether the girl we liked would ever like us back. Now Fred is a father of two and has traded in his small holding for a 100 acre farm, while Jo's been offered St Columba's and is doubling the size of Patterson St -sorry Two Doors. (That's to be the new name, I guess Phil couldn't decide which door to brick up.) My chums have both achieved so much, while I feel like I'm walking into the wind and getting nowhere._

 _Life in Sarnia, now that was real work. I could hold my head up and know what I was doing really mattered. All anyone talks about here is how to win a surgery place with Dr Campbell, who will top Anatomy this week, or wasn't invited to Professor Meade's private supper. This summer I felt part of something bigger. It may have been a small part but it mattered, Anne. I didn't notice if I was hungry or tired, all I cared about was what I could learn and how I could help. Even here, though I am every minute missing you and ignoring Norcross, I can't stop thinking about the Flahertys. I'm glad you want to know more about them, sweetheart, but then of course you would, you're that sort of girl.  
_

 _They lived on the outskirts of Sarnia, about an hour's hike from The Three Weeds. Their daughter, Freda, who would be about Elizabeth's age, was playing by the gate. She was moving a line of old conkers along the top of the fence. They were her herd, she told me, three cows and their calves, but no more bull, the bull had died and did I want to see where he was buried? In short she was a bright, sensitive girl not the sullen, defensive child I had been expecting. I spent about an hour with Mrs Flaherty. We stayed out on the porch. I think she felt her house wasn't fit for visitors, and why should it be when her husband had been alive just thirty hours earlier? It wasn't any injury he sustained from the mine that killed him, he fell from a tree when a branch gave way._

 _Eventually Freda asked if I wanted something to drink and led me inside while her mother stared at a line of washing. They had the sweetest water that she ladled from an old brown crock and as I drank it I noticed a photograph on the mantel above the stove. It was a picture of husband and wife and a girl I didn't recognise. She had the same colouring as Freda, pale eyes and dark curling hair, even a gap between her teeth, but the expression was lifeless, her mouth falling open, her head lolling awkwardly against her shoulder. You remember Em White's baby brother, Henry, who had palsy? This girl looked just liked that.  
_

 _So I said to Freda I didn't realise she had a twin, and Freda laughed and said, 'Don't be daft Mister Blythe, that's me!'  
_

 _My mouth was still open when her mother came into the kitchen, ordered her daughter to hush, and bid me good day._

 _You can imagine how confused I was. I was picking up Freda's cows as I closed the gate when their neighbour approached me. Mrs Brennan often came to watch over Freda while her parents were working. She was paid too, she demanded it as Freda was prone to rages and fits. I couldn't square this at all with the girl I'd met and I said so plainly._

 _'It's the ghost of Mike Flaherty, is what it is,' Mrs Brennan says. 'That branch that fell, well it landed on Freda, she took a blow to the top of the head, passed out cold while her papa lay dying. And when she woke up, well she was as chatty and spirited as Mike Flaherty his self!'_

 _Can you believe it, Anne? I longed to go back there and examine Freda's injury but the opportunity never came. Now it's all I can think about._

 _Well, not all..._

 ** _Later..._**

 _Confound that Norcross! I had hoped he might take his 'constitutional' after chapel, but he returned promptly with one of the first years who had a tin bath over his head, instructed him to fill it with hot water and then stood over me with that conduct book and said, 'Article 15 C, students will respect rights to privacy and respite in dormitories at all times,' and pointed to the door. Why can't he take his bath in the ablutions block like the rest of us?_

 _I am now in the library when I want to be on my bed with the window open (those nails didn't last the night) and the memory of you in my head. That dryad of the hearth, with her hair worn loose, in a filmy white dress like a bride of summer, nestling against scarlet Miss Brooke..._

 _I'll be sure to look out for Katherine this term. I wouldn't be sorry to have young Irving here, too. Going by those arms he must have made crew at his Latin School. We could have done with him at Redmond, though I always saw him as a coxman, myself. Last time I saw Irving he was slighter than Norcross, so slender and pale, almost girlish. If he's as big as you say I expect he'll make the Harvard team. I hope he does. Harvard and Redmond have a regatta in May -I look forward to taking young Irving on._

 _You know what, my girl, I think I'll wander down to the river, perhaps take a boat out and get those arms of mine working. When you think of me imagine them wrapped around you._

 _Your all too mortal,_

 _Gil_

 ** _..._**

 ** _* Negative Capability (to realise you're never going to know the reason for something and be cool with that) is taken from a letter by Keats._**

 ** _* Whitehorse is in Yukon_**

 ** _I'd love to know what you think of Norcross, the mystery of Freda, and Gilbert's oh so subtle jealousy. I'm trying to show how Gilbert is changing. I know a lot of criticism about his character in the books after Anne of the Island is about him being too work focussed and unromantic. My goal is to show how that happened and hopefully change some reader's minds, because a man who is passionate about what he does is a beautiful, beautiful thing._**

 ** _Thanks for reading, and especial thanks to Rebecca the Historian who noticed a mistake I made about how many Green Gable summers Anne had left. You're the best, RtH!_**

 ** _k._**


	5. Nettles and orange-peel

_**Hello, this next letter begins midway. The first five lines are taken from Anne's let** **ter to Gilbert in ch 1, the third year of** **Anne of Windy Willows** **(Poplars). The first half of** **Gilbert's letter contains some hard reading, so if you're not in that fram** **e** **of mind just skip it.** **  
**_

 _ **With love and gratitude to L.M.M. ~everything is hers, only this idea is mine**_

 **Chapter five**

 _ **Windy Willows, Spook's Lane**_

 _ **S'side**_

 _ **September 8th**_

 _...'But I love children, Rebecca,' I said._

 _'Children yes, but them's holy terrors, Miss Shirley... They're from the States, you know.'_

 _As if that explained everything. Rebecca Dew has about as much use for Yankees as Mrs Lynde has. And after reading your letter I might say the same of you. I know very well what you meant when you said you 'look forward to taking on young Irving,' Gilbert Blythe. Paul Irving is just a boy trying manhood on for size. A starry eyed colossus of a boy, but a boy nonetheless, and likely to make what Stella calls a Confirmed Bachelor. So take him on by all means, but don't be surprised if he starts mooning over you!  
_

 _Apologies for that lightening strike of an exclamation mark. Here I am chortling when I am meant to be mastering the Board of Education's latest directive on handwriting. We are to drop those delicious loops that precede each letter for a more pedestrian flick. I suspect they won't be satisfied till we have every student punching typewriter keys! It's true a typewriter can't run away from you like a pen can, but surely half the joy of writing is never knowing where you might end up. The reason for my inky wobble was because I was thinking of the White Sands post master, Tom Doherty. Remember how he doted on you? It sounds like such a romantic notion, but how much more sensible if people were allowed to marry whomever they chose. Take Maxwell Loudon and Fraser White, how many times have we heard someone say if Maxwell had been born Maxine he and Fraser would make happiest marriage in Avonlea? Instead they make their own wives miserable._

 _I never knew Em White's little brother but I have seen his photograph. He had that angelic look. I don't mean chocolate boxish, all dimples and eyelashes. I mean with eyes that are not of this realm. I received a letter from Priscilla yesterday, she and Will are now in Sendai ~it has a Starlight festival every winter and the town is decorated in THOUSANDS of lamps. Oh, Gil I long to see it! They also have a superstition about people who have whites showing beneath their irises. Apparently it means they're not long for this world, perhaps because they appear to be looking toward heaven. Whatever the thinking I wish Priss had never told me because suddenly I see eyes like that everywhere! The man who delivers the milk, the girl topping sophomore French, even darling Mrs Raymond. I'm almost afraid to look into the eyes of those 'Yankee' twins of hers ~I'll never forgive myself if something happened to Gerald and Geraldine.  
_

 _As we're talking of eyes... Well, you're not. No doubt you are lying under your open window while Mr Norcross shoots daggers in your direction ~from his eyes not his hands, though I'm sure either would make you flinch. It's his eyes I'm most interested in. You should make a subtle study of them ~does that count as an ology? I have a suspicion you'll find something there which says, Keep your distance! Stay away! And if you do there is a chance that friendship can still be won. Unfortunately for me, Pyes don't have anything of the sort. Pyes have eyes that say... Come a little closer... closer... closer... so I can stomp on your toes and give you a fat lip! But Katherine... In her I saw such longing for companionship. She had the look of an abandoned house, weathered and dreary and signalling fear into any child who came within one hundred yards of her. When all she truly wanted was someone with the courage to come in, clear away her dark corners and make her new again._

 _So which one is Robin Norcross? With a merry name like Robin I refuse to believe he could be all bad. Doesn't it make you wonder why he tries so hard to keep people at arm's length? The nasty jokes, that ridiculous conduct book? The fellow goes out of his way NOT to have friends. Look into his eyes, Gil, tell me what you see. Failing that introduce him to Katherine, she'll have the measure of him in a minute.  
_

 _Do you think Phil may have sufficiently forgiven her for not allowing me to visit Sam-baby sooner? And yes, I have permission to tell you (though clearly you aren't top of obstetrics for nothing) that you guessed right. Phil is expecting again. She says you'll be able to tell the moment you see her anyway, because she's huge, poor darling._

 _'I don't think Two Doors will remain Two Doors much longer,' she writes. 'Going by my girth I'll have to knock them together just to fit in the house! We had been offered the Rectory at St Columba's but of course we refused. Patterson St might not be much, but it's where we belong. They'll have to carry me out of my little kingdom. No seriously, honey, I am so fat they really will have to carry me out!'_

 _Instead of living there she and Jo plan to make the Rectory into an orphanage. What a wonderful place for children to live. I dressed Phil in her bridal splendour in the Rectory's Spare Room ~though really she dressed herself while I was sent to the window every minute to tell her whether Jo had arrived. It's a hearty old house, with velvety walls, toffee coloured floors and the broadest, deepest window seats in almost every room. I can't tell you how much it will mean to those children to have a home that FEELS like a home. Oh! I forgot to mention Stella has adopted a little boy. I don't know much more about it, you know how Stella can be. Well, what do you make to this?_

 _'He reminds me of that stinky old stray that adopted you in Patty's Place days, the one Phil wanted to murder. Honestly I got quite close to it myself. I would get home from the publishing house, cross and tired and find Patch (that's what he calls himself, have you ever?) sitting cross legged on top of my piano gorging on the fruit I display there. Or curled up at the foot of my bed. Or attempting to cook me pancakes. I tried to take him to a Home ~don't look at me like that, Anne, I'm not an earth mother like you~ but he came straight back. And yes, I was glad to see his gummy little grin. So I told him if he wants to stay with me he has to go to school, AND wash regularly -he really did pong- AND stop trying to burn the apartment down. So far it's working out alright, but Anne I never saw myself becoming a mother before you did.'_

 _Isn't it killing! I wonder if there is a Mrs Lynde in Stella's apartment block? Pray God there is a Matthew, every child needs a Matthew._

 _As I read over your account of Freda I was struck by how much you reminded me of him. The way you listened to her talk about her conker herd (what a good idea, I had to use stones myself and they always felt too cold to be cows). The way you sat out on the porch ~that was Matthew to a T! But if you will be Freda's Matthew please don't make a study of her, Gil. Mrs Flaherty will be frightened by what's happened, it's natural she'd want to shield her child from prying eyes. People can be quick to assume the most grievous and uncharitable things. If this becomes public they will see her daughter as a freak. I know you burn to do great things, and you will, Gilbert. You are. But as someone who been gossiped over and lied about, I'm asking you to be her Matthew, and let Freda's miracle remain just that._

 _That's where I must leave this, I still have to write to Dora to congratulate her on her new kittens (Marilla is allowing kittens!) and to Priss, Phil, Stella, Diana, Jane and someone else I can't remember. AND I have to tidy up my final chapter of Iona of Harris Island. I'll send it to my usual publishers, of course, but Stella mentioned I should fire a copy her way, too. They are branching into children's literature, after Spyri's success everyone is mad for orphan stories. What do you think of that? Iona may become the next Heidi..._

 _May your window always be open, my love!  
_

 _Anne-girl_

 _..._

 _ **Harvey House, Redmond, N.S.**_

 _ **September 13th**_

 _Hello Anne-girl,_

 _I won't be pursuing any study on Freda's injury. I'm afraid she died and under awful circumstances. For the first time in a long time I'm unsure whether to share what I know with you. Really it's me that I doubt. I'm fighting hard against my need to protect you when you may well have more experience with these things than I do. Forgive my rambling, telling difficult truths is something every doctor must learn. I wish they taught that instead of dermatology -yet another ology for Norcross to excel at- but they don't. So I must feel my way. I can't tell you what it means to know your hands are the ones holding this letter. I wish you were here, Anne._

 ** _Later..._**

 _I thought I was ready to write but it turned out I wasn't. Something else I'll have to master, putting my own feelings aside as swiftly as I can, and not act until I know it has been managed. No one, not even that rotting barge Norcross sees in my future, wants a doctor who blubs._

 _Yesterday I received a letter from a Constable Pierce from the Sarnia Police. He wants an account of my visit to the Flaherty property and also a medical assessment, so far as I can give one. He reports that Mrs Flaherty delivered a blow to Freda's head which killed her instantly. Mrs Brennan discovered her under the tree where her husband died, wailing, 'I was trying to get her back, I just wanted her back.'_

 _I think I know what's happened, Anne. The blow Freda received from the fallen branch acted on her brain and negated whatever paralysis (facial or otherwise) she was afflicted with. For Mrs Flaherty to say she wanted Freda back suggests that paralysis returned, which means whatever acted on her daughter's head lessened over time. The only thing that could account for this would be a large contusion or clot which gradually reduced in size until it no longer worked upon the cranial nerves. My feeling is that Mrs Flaherty, in a muddled and grief-stricken state, was hoping to 'cure' the paralysis again._

 _There can be no way of proving this, I don't even care if I'm wrong. What I care about is that I had the chance to examine Freda and I didn't. If I had I could have explained it to Mrs Flaherty, could have told her the change may not be permanent, and saved not only Freda's life but her mother's. Instead I let Hulme's study become my sole focus because of the prestige it carried. I've just learned from Melhop that my name will be included as an author on the paper he's submitting to the Royal Society. I've been nursing a quiet hope that my findings would be important, yet instead of feeling proud I feel indifferent.  
_

 _I don't agree with what you wrote, about letting Freda's miracle remain just that. If it was a miracle then nothing could alter the change in her. The truth is it was probably a simple bruise. The doctor in me knew this and yet I did nothing. I won't ever make that mistake again. My first duty must always be to the truth and I mean to do all I can to uncover and defend it. I won't be dissuaded, whatever your argument, however well meant. So don't ask it of me, Anne. You'll find my will is just as strong as yours.  
_

 _Norcross is also discovering my stubborn side. I've done more than leave my window open, I lifted out the pane of glass. When he boarded it up I blocked his chimney and went out for the evening. We now have a dark and smoky room but no hint of a truce. I can't forsee a time I will ever be gazing into his eyes, but in this I trust you implicitly. No one knows the way through the labyrinth of the human heart like you, Anne Shirley. If the opportunity arises I'll take it, though if Katherine is able to so much the better.  
_

 _Mrs Blake does not forgive her. She is certainly quite round -and revoltingly happy (her words not mine) and Jo is losing more hair and looks to be gaining more teeth by the size of his smile. Dinner was strange, Phil is having very odd cravings and it showed in the cooking. But you know I'll eat almost anything, except ham. And Phil's gingerbread rocks. Remember how proud she was when she made them? We talked a good deal about Patty's Place days, and then more about the goings on at Patterson Street. There were women popping in with socks and hats for Sam, boys wanting to see Jo's dogs, and girls wanting to talk boys with Phil. A stray chicken fluttered through the kitchen window, the man who had been painting upstairs began playing the piano, a nervous theology student who came with a question suddenly broke into song, while Sam rode the knee of an old man who's lived on Patterson St all his life. It was a rowdy, crowded, comfortable scene filled with warmth. I sat there munching on nettle and orange-peel dumplings watching it dance around me, and saw it was the life I had wanted for us._

 _What do they say, you can take the boy out of Avonlea... I'm sure it only resonated because it felt so familiar. The life we make will be just as satisfying. We really could go anywhere. I'll have to think about that soon, you know. Or perhaps I won't need to. You can write your bestsellers and take me on lecturing tours like Dickens and Twain. It's terrific news your book is almost complete. You'll be lobbing a copy this way too, I hope? Iona did start out as my great-great grandmother after all. I wonder what she would think of your story? And ours? As for Tom Doherty, he never had a chance, Anne. You know I like red heads.  
_

 _Ah, my girl I miss you. Write me soon.  
_

 _Gil_

 _..._

 ** _* Gilbert's aversion to ham is a running joke throughout the Diary stories. Phil's gingerbread from ch 7, Redmond Diaries -the second year_**

 **Kim -merci :o)  
**

 **RtH -yes, it was a wink to George & Leslie Moore!**

 **Julie -that Two Doors line was a favourite of mine, guess what it is this time?**

 **Sunny -I spent way too much time thinking up Norcross's name, so I'm glad you like it**

 **PB -I was so looking forward to writing that bit on 'young Irving' -ha ha!**

 **ww -you're right to feel wrong about Norcross, don't worry he's not another Pye**

 **Edk -I think for L.M.M. romance was secondary to writing about the difference Anne makes in people's lives. I'm trying to show that Gilbert does this too.**

 **AA -some more glimpses just for you**

 **J -when that line came to me I did nerdy air punching  
**

 **Chinook -that's why I described this story as what happens after the swoony bit, kinda as a warning ;o)**

 **Cate -I have plans for Norcross!**

 **Thank you so much for reading, I didn't expect this final instalment to be as well received as it is. I know this chapter had some things that are hard to read, if you know Anne's House of Dreams then you'll know why. If not please read it! :o) k. _  
_**


	6. Strange and beautiful

_**Windy Willows, Spook's Lane**_

 _ **S'side  
**_

 _ **September 20th**_

 _My Dearest Love,_

 _I am sitting on my window seat watching the Storm King change his robes from heathery violet to duskiest black; a gift from the sky, whose crimson clouds curl up in smiles as though taking joy in the mountain's own._

 _How many hours have I spent lying here thinking of you? You once wrote that it took you hours to ask me if I ever did such a thing, and I thought to myself, How can you doubt it, when everything, everything EVERYTHING is a shining reminder of you? Your eyes in the last mouthful of Darjeeling. Your body in the feel of a sun warmed wall. Your smell as I press a hot iron over lavender scented linen. And your taste, you don't really taste of apple and yet every time I bite into one I am filled with your flavour. It's gotten that I can only eat them in the solitude of my room.  
_

 _I never think of going to you, I know that I can't and knowing that robs your memory of its sweetness. So I try to forget you are far away and imagine you are next to me. But tonight I can't. All I want is sit with you and hold you as tightly as I can. And it has nothing to do with needing to kiss you or to fill a hollow ache, and everything to do being your friend. I want so much to be with you, Gilbert. I even went to my new Vice's house to inform her that I had to leave because I had to be with you. But as I gazed up at her glossy black door this horribly calm voice whispered in my head, What are you doing? Even if you could convince Lettie, how much time could Gilbert give you? It's not as though he can skip hospital rounds the way he might skip a lecture? Then he has midterms to prepare for ~something I should be doing myself~ to say nothing of how much worse it will be to leave him again after so short a time._

 _Yet a short time is all I ask for. Not whole days or even whole hours. Just the two of us sitting for a minute or two under a tree or on a doorstep. I want to hold your hand and listen to you tell me about Freda. I want to bring your head to my shoulder and kiss your curls and murmur, It will be alright, you will be alright. Because I know how I longed to hear someone say that to me and I can't bear for you to suffer through the same. It's one thing to be disappointed in someone and console yourself with, They didn't know better. Quite another to know they knew better yet still let you down._

 _If this world is divided in any way it isn't between love and hate or ignorance and wisdom but between those who say, 'No one did it for me so why should I do it for them?' and those who say, 'No one did it for me and that's why I am determined to be there for someone else, because I know what it would have meant and what a difference it could have made.' You'll recognise the former easily enough, they are the ones who live in fright that there will never be enough for them if they don't insist themselves and their importance. That's why I laugh at them, and it's not because I'm an angel. It's because they don't realise how ridiculous they are; like a ship with sails which are lined with gold and a flimsy, leaking hull._

 _I learned very early that the only riches that matter are the ones that can never be taken from me. You learned that, too. I saw it in you the day I discovered you'd given up the Avonlea school for me. You were glad to do it, you said, because you are the sort of man who feels no loss when he gives of himself. You simply saw I was hurting and knew a way to prevent it. Now, after Freda, I long to do same for you. Oh, I could tell you that you take too much upon yourself, that you expect perfection when perfection is impossible. But I know these aren't the words you'll want to hear. So I will tell you to remember Freda always, and to serve and care for all who find themselves in your hands as though it was the same little girl before you. Do that, my darling man, and I promise you the pain you feel now will be the spur that will lead you to greatness. I don't mean the sort that is lined with gold. I mean true greatness, the sort your Great Uncle David has, the sort Phil has. The sort Matthew had._

 _I had no right to ask what I did, but I won't promise never to ask it again. Those memories rub against me sometimes, of that unloved and unloveable girl I used to be. I can't help but want to rescue her. Then I remember I no longer need rescuing ~though that won't always be the case. Oh Gilbert, do you ever feel it, the sense that our happiness can't last, or do only orphans feel this way?_

 _My Iona has gone to Stella, and I'll tuck in a copy with this letter, too. I let Mr Harrison read over a few chapters this Summer. He thought I'd named the Island for him! I long to know what you think of it, what I have never been able to say out loud to anyone I have managed to write in a book. It felt easier that way, but it was you I imagined reading it._

 _I miss you more than I thought possible. I feel I would give up everything just to walk down the stairs and find you at my door. Instead I'll cover these pages with kisses and rub them in rosemary and dream of the coming Christmas._

 _I love you, Gilbert, and I want you to know it will be alright. You will be alright._

 _All the love in my heart,_

 _Anne_

 _..._

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond_**

 ** _Kingsport, N.S._**

 ** _September 30th_**

 _Dear Miss Shirley,  
_

 _I feel formal greetings are necessary because I don't believe I have met this particular Anne before, the Anne who wrote Iona of Harris Island. My name is Gilbert Blythe and I am an ordinary man who has had the unbelievable good fortune to find himself beloved of a most exceptional and in every way out of the ordinary woman. I wish I was able to introduce her to you, I'm certain you would find her a kindred spirit.  
_

 _And who might you be, Miss Shirley? I'm asking in all seriousness. Who are you? Someone who sends me a manuscript wrapped in brown paper and twine, as though it was meant for a Baking Powder competition, when really it should have come to me via the talons of a giant eagle or perhaps in the hand of your giantess, Myrtilla. It doesn't seem possible that such a story could arrive by something as insignificant as the second post. I think I'm still half in Iona's world and keep expecting a whale to pass by my window.  
_

 _Anne-girl! ANNE-GIRL. Your story doesn't come close to what I was expecting, and it shows how very ordinary I am when I tell you I thought you were writing about the adventures of a harumscarum girl on a windswept island. But this. I was enchanted, horrified, revolted, mesmerised... even Norcross dared to cross into Blythe territory to see what absorbed me. I think he was hoping it was the latest paper from Professor Keaton's group in Halifax, the fellow thinks of nothing but medicine, and coming from me that is saying something. I won't bother to describe his expression when I explained I was reading a children's tale -if I tell you Norcross loathes children I'm sure that will suffice. Though calling this a tale for children doesn't do it justice. Yet what else to call it -I've never read anything like this in my life._

 _You began it in the usual way, except Iona had what she called 'crow coloured hair'. I should have known then, and certainly when I learned that instead of a sprinkling of freckles she had an amethyst coloured birthmark over one eye. Yet still I read on expecting to be introduced to Iona's family, her ideas, her dreams, only to find the ramshackle house she lived in was in the belly of a whale. Not the pink and glistening organ I imagined once held Jonah. This was cavernous, menacing and most macabre of all, lined with barbed yellow teeth. She grew up alone in that monstrous place with nothing of her own but an Everlasting Candle and her shadow on the wall. I had to wonder where this dark image sprang from. I clean forgot it was you who had written it. Then the words of your letter came back to me. You said you had put down in this story what you had never managed to say out loud, and I realised- well, you will know what I realised because we are kindred spirits, too.  
_

 _I want to go to you, too, Anne, and sit with you on that same stone step and promise that you will never know that dark place again. It's gone from your life just as it has gone from Iona's when she wrapped herself around that silver eel and swam out into the sea. Those tattooed arms that plucked her from the water, I want to be that for you. Admiral Harris who schooled Iona in -how did he word it?- 'essential things that every gal should know; how to sail, how to fight, and how to survive the lava rains.' I admit I was taken with that old sea dog, though I wonder if Momeky Boy wasn't more like me. In fact I'll venture he was me, unless all Momekies have curly hair and a scar beneath their breast? At the risk of sounding like Davy, does Iona follow him to End-of-the-Earth or does she stay on her beloved Island? When he made that raft from gooseberry glue and driftwood and set off under the three sun sunset, did she see him again? Tell me Anne, I want to know.  
_

 _You amaze me. How often we say these words and how little we mean by it. But you, my love, are a never ending source of wonder, and I never want it to end. If you promise me anything, promise you'll never cease to be this girl. So bold, so strange and beautiful. You could never let me down. If I should become the great man that you see in me it will be because of you._

 _Living with Norcross I realise that I have relied too much on my natural interests. When I pictured myself as a doctor I always thought of being on hand to heal the sick and soothe the dying, but knowing how I foundered with Freda maybe I'm meant for another path. A life in labs and lecture halls is an honourable occupation, how would we come by cures and treatments if not for the men who peer down microscopes and pore over chemistry equations? Though it pains me to admit it, Norcross stuns me with his brilliance. The few times I have glimpsed his work I've been like you with a starry sky -or a tiny babe- agog with the miracle before me. I could learn so much from him, Anne, if only I could stand him. I'm sure he thinks the same of me. I'm beginning to think he didn't request this room in order to make me leave, but to glean some insights of his own.  
_

 _I have suspected this for a while and confirmed it yesterday when the fellow refused to open the door. I had gone to evening rounds at Imperial and realised I'd forgotten to put on my tie -the Night Matron won't allow us on the wards unless we're 'properly attired'. After almost beating the door down I resorted to using that beech tree the way I'd been meaning to since I arrived here, and climbed up to our window. And there was Norcross in my chair reading my essay on the pathogenesis of appendicitis. I have half a mind to leave another paper out, one filled with half facts and fallacies, in order to make a fool of him. But I know there'd be no point. Norcross is no fool, for one, and I am a terrible liar.  
_

 _I haven't managed to introduce him to Katherine, though she has met Phil, and it seems an accord has been reached. How that was done I don't know. I saw them together with arms linked as Katherine wheeled Sam's carriage through the park by Spofford Avenue. I still wander the gravestones sometimes and hope I might bump into you. The clouds we used to watch, Anne, was this where your whale came from, or did it emerge from a Jonah day?_

 _I see them too, those times ahead that might take our joy from us. Not only orphans fear that. But I'm with you, sweetheart, even when I'm not by your side, and I feel you here with me. All the same Christmas can't come too soon.  
_

 _Ever yours,_

 _Momeky Boy_

 _..._

 ** _* I have Lettie as the new Vice who replaced Katherine because I couldn't find a reference to her actual name. If you know it let me know._**

 **I'm sorry this chapter took a while, I had to work out what sort of story Anne Shirley would write and every idea bored me until that whale came into my head. I realise I've left a lot to the imagination about Anne's childhood but I think kindred spirits can work it out :o)**

 **Four chapters to go until the end of this series and then I think me and 19th century Anne are done. I'm gonna write a contemporary Anne story next, if you've read Formerly known as J's work you'll know how great they can be. Thanks for reading! _  
_**

 **k.**


	7. Joyous and impatient

**Chapter seven**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond_**

 ** _K'port_**

 ** _October 15th_**

 _Dearest Anne,_

 _Two early birthday presents for me this year -three if you count besting Norcross in the gynaecology midterm. Your gift and my name in the Royal Society's paper on therapeutic treatments for the prevention of decompression sickness in caisson environments. Not exactly a beguiling title, but what do I care? I am speechless with the honour of it. I keep thinking Melhop has made a mistake, yet each time I read it there is my name:_

 _'As Blythe's findings show...'_

 _'As predicted by Blythe...'_

 _'When compared with Blythe's results...'_

 _All I did was record the men's physical changes and put forward a few theories as to why this might be so and what could be done to remedy it. It just seemed good sense. I was sure Melhop would tell me my ideas had either been attempted years ago or weren't practical, instead the fellow took me seriously. So seriously I am first equal author. I've never had such an unexpected birthday gift. Excepting the contents of the box that was delivered this morning. A black silk top hat. Thank you very much, Miss Shirley._

 _I always thought the best use for one would be as a waste paper basket, but I think in your Anne-ish way you knew I might have need of it. I've just this moment been invited to Professor Meade's Supper Club. A rare privilege, and one I was content to live without. Only a certain type is invited to Meade's, the sort who went to a certain school or comes from a certain family. The sort who has ten top hats. Now I have one myself. All I have to do is find the white tie and tails to go with it._

 _It's a pity Norcross isn't my size, I'd happily filch his suit for the evening. He has several, he's another who comes from one of those fine old families but his hail from Toronto. If I discovered they were from Venus it wouldn't surprise me. If not for his smug little face I would question whether there was any human element to him at all. I've been living with him for two months and never seen more of him than his head. Even his hands are always in gloves. They're so small. I'm almost envious, small hands can get into the most awkward places during surgery. Though brute strength has its merits, too._

 _We were posted together for an amputation two days ago, a man was having a gangrenous leg removed at the hip. The surgeon was the well known butcher, Jock Lincoln. I can't stand the man, he's self important, has perfunctory technique, and no sympathy for his patients. After reading over the surgical notes I was sure the femur might have been saved. The surgery would have taken much longer, but then the patient could have used a prosthesis. Instead he'll be confined to a bed or a chair for the rest of his life because Lincoln had a pressing lunch engagement._

 _I'm sure Norcross didn't have much of an appetite that day. Lincoln ordered him to pick up the rotting limb and take it to the furnace room. It must have weighed as much as he did, and the smell... Norcross buckled instantly, slipped in the bloodied sawdust and fainted. After a full minute I was given the nod to help him up but he had recovered by then and pushed me away. I'm only telling you this gruesome story because it was the first time I was able to peer into his eyes. And do you know what I saw? You. When you were about to crack a slate over my head. Fortunately for me he wasn't strong enough to lift that leg._

 _..._

 _ **Windy Willows**_

 _ **Spook's Lane**_

 _ **S'side**_

 _ **October 30th**_

 _...and very nice you look too, in your black silk top hat. But you know you should have sent the cutting from the Redmond Rave to your folks, Gil. Half of your mother's letters to me are questions about you! You are writing to her regularly, aren't you? I'd hate her to think of me as the girl who stole her boy away. I'm having horrible stomach churning second thoughts about the gift I've got her for Christmas. You talk of things being beaten over heads, what if she decides to take her new engraved rolling pin to mine? Are you certain she has always wanted one? Though it is darling, the strawberries look so real, some of the leaves and tendrils carved along the body could only be two sixteenths long. If Norcross ever tires of surgery perhaps you can suggest wood carving as a suitable alternative!_

 _I should be telling you to invite him for Christmas, the crisp snows of Avonlea made such an impression on Katherine. But instead I'm going to be despicably selfish and ask you not to. This will be the first time Green Gables and Allwinds will share the holiday together. I'm already at sixes and sevens just thinking about it, having you and Robin play tricks on each other would cast me into hundreds and thousands. Clearly I am nervous. I've been comforting myself with the thought that there was so much time ahead for me to become true friends with your mother. Now it's less than a year till I join your family and we are still only good acquaintances. Why I thought a rolling pin would help... and Diana is not much better._

 _'Oh you'll find out all about mother-in-laws,' she writes. 'No doubt you'll have it worse than I do. Mrs Wright has three sons to keep her occupied. Mrs Blythe has one.'_

 _Even Marilla betrays a concern that I might not make the most accomplished wife. Her letters are strewn with hints about whether I am making time to finish my centrepiece or perfect my bullion stitch. Rachel, of course, has never been subtle and interrogates me weekly on the dishes I intend to bake for Christmas dinner._

 _'Sarah Blythe's a kindly soul, but make no mistake she'll be sizing up everything you serve and judging you squarely on your skill, economy and flair. I'm afraid when it comes to taking care of husbands books don't count for a lot. But you make pastry flakier than mine and you'll have her wrapped round your ink stained finger.'_

 _There I was thinking I would give a copy of Bright Bell to your father. He's been so encouraging about my writing. Not to say your mother hasn't, but what do you think I should I do to make the best impression? And don't you dare write back with some no help answer like, 'Be yourself,' or that you have no idea what a bullion stitch is. I know you do. I once spied you untangling a skein of embroidery floss with a very practiced hand. At least tell me what sorts of dishes your mother enjoys, or should your father's tooth take preference? Or your Aunt Mary-Maria's, or your Great Uncle Dave's or..._

 ** _..._**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond_**

 ** _K'port, N.S._**

 ** _November 12th_**

 _... then the strangest thing happened. I was about to head downstairs to where I was told the man was waiting when Norcross grasped my arm._

 _'I may detest you, Blythe, but I should be breaking Gentleman's Code if I allowed you to meet your guest so shabbily attired.'_

 _I plucked his hand away and told him, 'Norcross, whoever the fellow is, he has come seeking me, not the other way round. I've no interest in preening for a stranger -I'll wipe the jam off my tie and that's it.'_

 _'You're more of a fool than I credit you for. That's no stranger that waits on you, it's Lord Hulme.'_

 _I don't know who was more surprised, me, or Norcross when he saw me dart out of the room without a thought for the dollop of gooseberry preserves that was about to trickle onto my shirt._

 _It was such a pleasure to see Hulme again, he's got even fatter and added another gold tooth to his wide open grin. He also had some astonishing news for me._

 _So now we come to the meat of this letter, and what's been on my mind the entire time I've been writing this. Anne-girl, Hulme wants me as part of his personal team of physicians. He extended the offer to Melhop too, though the fellow declined. Hulme was so incredulous he was purple._

 _'Couldn't bear to leave Sarnia! But you won't make the same mistake will you, Blythe?'_

 _I am ashamed to say I almost let my feelings get the better of me. My hand itched to shake his and promise right there in the Chancellor's winter garden that I would follow him to the ends of the earth. No sooner was I thinking this than I thought of you. Once again you have anticipated something I never dreamed of; that I might one day round the globe. I told him plainly I could give no answer until I had spoken with you. He laughed and said he should have expected such an answer, and revealed what had clinched his decision to come to Kingsport and offer me the position. Turns out it wasn't so much my ability as the fact I am the only man to send him a money order to cover the cost of my food and lodging._

 _'Brains are good, brains are crucial for what I want to do. But most of all I need to know that I can trust a man, and Blythe I trust you.'_

 _I had to laugh then because it was you who suggested I repay all I owed, and I told him so._

 _'She sounds a sensible lady,' he said, 'and sure to be sensible of the opportunity I am offering you.'_

 _He then went into detail about his latest expedition. He wants to explore the Northwest Territory. The Fox writes there's been rumours of gold in the Klondike and I suspected this might be Hulme's true motive. But again the fellow surprised me because what really interests him is the Antarctic. He wants to be the first to explore the region and means to get there within the next decade, with an ice breaker ship and a crew experienced in polar climes. I feel as though he has given me a ticket to the moon! Can you imagine it, Anne? Me, an Island boy, at the bottom of the world!_

 _When I wrote we might live anywhere this was not exactly what I had in mind, and I know it's not what you imagined. Hulme said my income would more than keep you in pretty dresses and prettier houses. I told I could more easily picture you on the freezing tundra which he seemed to find a great joke. Of course, we can talk about this when we see each other at Christmas. I'll have to let my folks know, too. To think just ten years ago I thought I would likely end up a farmer. Ten years from now I could be making the ten thousand mile journey to the south pole._

 _..._

 ** _Windy Willows_**

 ** _Spook's Lane, S'side_**

 ** _November 23rd_**

 _... announcement of my own. Iona has been accepted by Stella's firm! As expected my own publishers were more circumspect. They rejected its first incarnation after all, and were even less interested in whales and witches. They said they would consider it if I removed 'any reference to the fantastical'. How can they ask me to do such a thing when the fantastical amounts to HALF the story? The Vancouver people couldn't be more different. They gushed over it, more than that they want me to write a series! BOOKS! In the multiple! They've asked to meet me, or failing that my agent. MY agent! Isn't that delicious?_

 _I am about to write and explain that I am a mere headmistress, and one very much tied to the requirements of the school term. A journey to Vancouver would take weeks. Though I have to admit I long to go! Finally a publishing house that understands me. I feel vindicated, joyous, and impatient to have a conversation with people who are interested in the stories I yearn to write. As for Yukon, it doesn't matter where we go, darling, so long as the work excites you. Remember what I said? All I need is a bit of roof, some paper and ink, and you! I can already see us in our cosy log cabin. Me working on my fifth book, you on the other side of our double desk writing up your observations. Oh, we could be so happy, Gilbert. I can't wait to tell our families..._

 _..._

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond_**

 ** _K'port N.S._**

 ** _December 2nd_**

 _... Mam's letter was effusive enough. I could tell she was disappointed but I know she understands. It's not every day her boy gets invited by a Lord to the grandest Ball in Kingsport. The fact your publishing people will be there only confirmed my decision. Everything's falling into place for us, sweetheart. It won't be possible for you to bake as much as an apple with Marilla, but weather permitting we should make Avonlea by Christmas day. My white tie and tails are getting more wear than I ever thought possible. And Phil says to remind you... wait I'll get Phil to write her instructions herself, she's right by my elbow-_

 _Anne darling,_

 _I'll be styling your hair, but you must must must have a new gown made for the ball. No, your green silk won't do. Nor your blue taffeta -in fact if you donated your taffeta to the costume department of your drama club I shouldn't be sorry. Now I don't know what sort of dressmakers you have in Summerside, hopefully not the sort who still consider bustles the coming thing. But take it from one who knows how to make a statement at these grand affairs; I want to see you in black. A slinky, inky velvet, with a neckline that drapes low -even lower than you'd dare- to show off your divine shoulders. (I'd say your hair too, but I know the look you'll give me). You want to appear enigmatic yet approachable, after all you have to make a good impression on the publishers AND Lord Hulme._

 _Ugh, Gil is looking at me as if to say, you can have Sam back. And smelling what I smell I think I know why. Not that you'll have to worry about such things, Miss Authoress! So remember: Black. Low cut. Enigmatic. Approachable. And smile for Lord Hulme! He may have a good opinion of your husband-to-be, but he must have an even better one of you. You should be affable yet confident, he'll want to be sure you're not the hysterical sort -so limit yourself to one glass if champagne, you don't want a repeat of the day after Convocation. As for the publisher, don't be too, too nice. They mustn't think you care one way or the other. Once you sign that contract you'll be tied to them forever, so make certain they understand they won't be taking advantage of Queen Anne. Not that you should be too aloof. Some of these bookish types are easily offended. Oh, and when you dance, don't you dare only dance with Gilbert. You must dance for the public now, but honey, you'll have such fun!_

 _Hopefully we'll have the spare room papered by the time you arrive, if I've decided on a pattern that is. I'll pass this back to Gil. Don't I wish you could see his face. He's found his calling, Anne, and you know a man cannot be truly happy until he's found that. I can safely say I have never seen him look as happy -or as handsome- as he does right now!  
_

 ** _..._**

 ** _* Bright Bell is the short story collection Anne wrote in ch5 Redmond Diaries -the fourth year_**

 ** _* Anne's 'hysteria' after Convocation first mentioned in ch8 Redmond Diaries -the fourth year_**

 ** _* In 1889 Yukon was still part of the Northwest Territory_**

 ** _* kwak fun fact, the amputated leg story is based on real events._**

 ** _Thank you again for all your reviews and comments. I am so happy you liked the Iona story, I wondered if some readers might object or not comprehend what I meant, so your positive reaction meant all the more to me. I'm fairly sure I can get this story sewn up in three chapters, but it may take four. Or a thousand, I'm not ready to leave this world yet!_**

 ** _k._**


	8. Eager and not so eager

**Chapter eight**

 _ **Harvey House**_

 _ **Redmond**_

 _ **K'port N.S.**_

 _ **January 6th, 1890**_

 _Darling Snow Queen,_

 _Have you thawed out yet -this doctor in the making wants to know? I'm almost sorry I began that tradition of wanting you bare headed as you waved me off from the station. It would have been your hat that took the dump of snow from a cherry tree branch instead of you. From the way you leaped about I knew a good deal must have worked its way down your neck. I admit on this particular journey back to Redmond my books stayed in my satchel while my mind wandered freely. Mile after mile I imagined it was my hands that dipped under your collar to scoop out the snow that melted against your sweet, warm skin._

 _It's only been a day and a half since I held you and I miss you already. Now we are just another comfortably settled couple, years long engaged and sensible of our duties, it seemed reasonable to expect the magic might have rubbed off. Whether it was the awkwardness of seeing Marilla and Rachel at the Blythe table for Christmas or the unmentionable questions Davy assailed me with, I can't say. But something about this Christmas made me feel like a boy again.  
_

 _You were the girl who was there and then wasn't. Half in your airy castles. Half brought down by a bracing reality -that branchful of snow for one. And the bone Mam found in your baked salmon. The tam she made you that was too small, though you swore it wasn't and wore a pink stripe across your forehead every time you removed it. The night we were finally able to be alone and were so cold in the deeps of Lover's Lane we couldn't kiss for our chattering teeth. I could feel your arms around me, but your eyes told me you were somewhere else. I kept wanting to say, Come back to me Anne, though you stood directly before me. You were my Anne of the Island again and it fascinated me. YOU fascinated me. I was constantly telling myself to breathe, to remember what I was saying, because touching your cheek, helping you into your coat, catching you smile across the table had such an affect on me. It was as if I had gone back to the time I was so in awe of you that if I managed to touch your elbow I was sure I would dissolve into the floor._

 _Now I find myself back in the proper sphere wondering if it was all a dream. And as I am back let me take advantage of the fact and ask you about the publishers again. I know you didn't like them, Anne, but every time I brought it up you'd say, Not now, not here, it can wait. I let you away with it (see reasons above) and I wish that I hadn't, because I want to observe your face as you answer me. I don't want you to tie yourself to those people if you don't know in your heart that you are prepared to give them years of your life. If you are shaking your head right now then answer me this: If the situation was turned around and it was me who was having second thoughts (not that I am, and I will write that letter to Hulme just as soon as I can manage it) would you tell me to pursue something I didn't truly want? And we want this, don't we, sweetheart? Adventure, exploration, the chance to break new ground. We could never be satisfied with that little Avonlea life we left behind, could we?  
_

 _Please don't feel you must give your book to Stella's people because it's the canny thing to do. Remember the money you made from Averil, you ended up spending it on sensible clothing -and never wore any of it because every time you put them on they reminded you of a dream gone wrong. I would feel just the same, and come to loathe whatever fine thing your royalty cheques provided us with if I knew you were made unhappy by what you had to do to earn it. Not that I expect to be poor now. Perhaps marble halls are still out of my reach, but there are other things I have always dreamed of giving you -and our children. Now I can. I won't have to worry about how to provide for our family should something happen to me. I saw that dread eat up my father and can't express my relief that I will never endure the same fear. Our children won't have to fight for scholarships or find the money for college. And the places we can go, Anne. Not only Canada but the world. I can lay it all at your feet, take you anywhere you desire. Of course, I have that letter to write -it might help if I stopped writing this one. But there's another from Uncle David I need to reply to first. I wish you could have met him, Anne. But there you see, the realities of a country doctor. Confined to the Glen because of an outbreak of measles two days before Christmas. We'd never want a life like that, would we, Anne-girl?_

 ** _..._**

 ** _Windy Willows_**

 ** _Spook's Lane, S'side_**

 ** _January 12th, 1890_**

 _...you forget most people earn their keep in ways that make them unhappy. Do you think Freda's father wanted to risk his life digging tunnels under water? Or Katherine? She hated every moment in the classroom yet stayed so that she could repay her debts. Though if you happen to see my writing as a means to make money whose fault is that but my own? I am the one who sat at your parents table and listed all the lovely things the advance I've been offered could buy us. Marilla was careful to raise a girl with the skills to support herself. And that's who I am, Gilbert, and what I am used to. I can't imagine what I would do, who I would be, if I didn't have an occupation. I can see you smile and say, A fine problem to have, Miss Shirley! But Gilbert who would you be if I told you tomorrow you could give up medicine and live the life of a royal (or Royal Gardner). Would it really make you happy? I cannot believe it would. You would have walked a hole through your silk carpets in a week!_

 _Forgive me bringing up Roy but as you have been visiting with the ghost of your past I glimpsed into one of my futures, and it terrified me, Gil. This happened at the Ball last December, and if you are wondering why I haven't mentioned it till now, it's simply because I couldn't make sense of it till now. The entire night I was so ill at ease ~that much you knew. You thought it was because I didn't like Stella's boss, and it's true I didn't, but that doesn't mean I couldn't manage him. I've met his type many times before; on the school board, in parent interviews. A walking ego with a waxed moustache is how Lettie and I describe such men. I found his assistant far more unnerving. I am wary of using so unwholesome a term as vampire yet that was exactly how she felt to me. But instead of feeding on my blood she seemed to feed on my spirit. To be in that hot, close environment; the music, the noise, the crowd, when I only wanted to be with you was trying enough. But each time there was a lull in the music or a space on my dance card there was Miss Rotherham wanting to know where I got the idea for the whale, what did the toothed belly signify, was any of this based on real life experience? It was harrowing to have my story pulled to pieces and tossed back at me as though it was nothing but words on a page. I felt that giving her Iona would be like giving up my child; I could only do so if I found myself in direst need. Then I looked at you in your top hat and tails, smoking cigars with one of Lord Hulme's crowd, and I realised I never need worry about money again. And instead of feeling free, Gil, I felt trapped._

 _That's why I spent most of my time at the Ball outside. I know I told you I was overheating in that black velvet gown, and I was, but I felt poked and jabbed by other sensations too. I caught sight of another life. Not the one I am building with you, the one I almost had with Roy. Where pleasure began to feel like work and niceties became rules and gaiety became compulsory. I used to come home to Patty's Place with my jaw and cheeks aching from the constant smiling, the agreeing, the nodding. So much nodding! I felt like a mechanical songbird, paraded about like a curious plaything, waiting to be wound up and then made to sing the same melody over and over. I would sit there during exquisite recitals -or at long banquet tables- and imagine catastrophes. How marvellous it would be if a great wind swept through the concert hall and sent violas and diadems and top hats flying; how these fine upstanding folk would quail and scream as their precious facades were ripped away and how I would laugh to see it... Gilbert, I began to think like Josie Pye!_

 _Of course that's not the life we shall have, and the crisp cold winds from Kingsport harbour reminded me of this. The salt, the sea, the smell of snow... I could pretend I was home. I pictured that little log cabin in Yukon, you on one side of the desk, me on the other. And the page before me as white and blank as the sky outside our door. Because words wouldn't come. Not when I knew I must deliver them up to Miss Rotherham and The Waxy Moustache. I look at my manuscript now it has been in their hands, with its crossed out bits and arrows pointing to all my story's defects, and I remember how it felt to be someone else's property. Called ugly and feckless, valued only for what I could do, not for who I was._

 _I know a story is not a child. I spend my days teaching literature to hundreds of eager and not so eager pupils. I earn a living by pulling apart and dissecting words. It's not logical to be so precious about my own efforts. But if you know anything about me, darling, you know my heart is not concerned with logic. My stories ARE my children, and the children we shall have ~our many MANY children~ will be as living stories._

 _Like any good story they will need their troubles and adventures, so let's not wish their trials away no matter how horribly rich we find ourselves. Remember again what I said? I only need some_ _ink_ , _a roof over my head, and you. And I'm beginning to think I no longer require the ink!_

 ** _..._**

 ** _* a tam is a tam-o-shanter, a kind a beret style hat_**

 ** _* our many, many children first mentioned in ch 9 The Windy Willows Love Letters_**

 ** _Sorry this installment was late, if it doesn't make sense it's because Anne and Gilbert aren't quite making sense. Yes, I'm blaming fictonal characters for my deficiencies -because I can!_**

 ** _Love, k._**


	9. Windows and chair legs

**Hey! This chapter is a long one. When I think about it the first two letters in this chapter should have been at the end of the last chapter, but oh well, you get an extra big update instead. In this chapter I reference a chemise several times. You don't have to understand the reference for it to make sense, but in case you're curious it ties into my very first Anne story, a oneshot called An Uninvited Guest.**

 **Chapter nine**

 _ **Harvey House**_

 _ **Redmond**_

 _ **K'port N.S.**_

 _ **March 8th  
**_

 _... it seems the rumours are true. We were all summoned to the Great Hall and the Chancellor himself made the announcement. Women are to be admitted at Redmond medical school with the new intake in September. It's terrific news, Anne, I know of several nurses who will be especially cheered. They're more than capable, often put my skills to shame. But most importantly it will address a desperate need. The unnecessary deaths that occur because someone, usually a young girl or an elderly woman, is too ashamed to ask for help is frustratingly high. When I'm on rounds I don't see body parts anymore, what interests me is the contusion or tumour or cut upon that body part. But women don't know that, they just see a strange man asking them to undress. I do what I can to keep them at ease, and have long stopped blushing myself, but much of the problem could be avoided if we simply had more female doctors._

 _I thought it made sense and said so to Norcross. Well, not so much said as looked across at him with an affirming nod, only to see him storming out of the hall in disgust. I didn't bother to follow him so imagine my surprise when I found him at the boat shed an hour later. He was blubbing! Crying his eyes out because women are allowed to become doctors. Now will you give up on the idea of us ever being friends? He is precisely the sort of bigot who thinks women, like children, should be seen and not heard. You don't know how many times I've wished you here so that you could put him in his place._

 _I've been thinking a lot about the letter your twenty-four year old self wrote in January (how do you find twenty-five, Miss Shirley, it's the perfect marrying age, is it not?) about needing an occupation and wondered what you thought to this? The Fox finally replied to the letter I wrote him three months ago. In it he mentioned another desperate need, for more children's Homes in Yukon. I know how taken you were with Phil and Jo transforming St Columba's rectory into an orphanage, and if you'd prefer not write for the public eye, I thought perhaps a similar idea might interest you. Hulme has sent me further particulars about my position -it wouldn't do to accept him without knowing exactly what I am accepting- and reading between the lines I expect to be spending a good deal of time away from that little log cabin you dream about. But unlike Redmond women are very definitely not allowed. Whitehorse will merely be the base, he wants us to travel as far north as we can, deep into the arctic circle where even horses cannot go. Nor trees grow. I can't imagine myself there, let alone you, sweet Dryad. The thought of you alone in that cabin with nothing to do but keep house, no one could be satisfied with such a life. But if there are children in need of someone and you in need of something, it may just work..._

 ** _…_**

 ** _Windy Willows_**

 ** _Spook's Lane_**

 ** _S'side_**

 ** _March 12th_**

 _...funny you should mention waifs and strays. I'm going to confess something that I did last week, Gilbert. I suppose you'll think I'm meddling in other folks' business but I had to do something. I'll not be in Summerside next year and I can't bear the thought of leaving little Elizabeth to the mercy of those two unloving old women who are growing bitterer and narrower by the year. What kind of girlhood will she have in that gloomy place?_

 _"I wonder," she said, "what it would be like to have a grandmother you weren't afraid of?"_

 _This is what I did: I wrote to her father. He lives in Paris and I didn't know his address but Rebecca Dew had heard and remembered the name of the firm he runs there, so I took a chance and addressed him in care of it. I wrote as diplomatic a letter as I could, but I told him plainly he really ought to take Elizabeth, how she longs and dreams of him. Perhaps nothing will come of it, but if I hadn't written I would be forever haunted by the conviction that I ought to have done it._

 _Naturally I want him to claim her and love her as she deserves. But if he refuses to acknowledge her, Gil, then I want to ask her Grandmother if she can come live with us. At least I did. Now that I know more about your work with Hulme I don't know if I wouldn't be swapping one sort of isolation for another. Oh, I could manage well enough. I can make friends with windows and chair legs, and while it's not quite the beginning to married life I envisaged how can I keep you from your dream? You've worked so hard for this, darling. When I said I would follow you to the ends of the earth I meant it!_

 ** _..._**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond_**

 ** _K'port N.S._**

 ** _April 1st_**

 _...sorry to hear Marilla is no better. I've made up my mind to come to Avonlea for Easter after all. No doubt Norcross will take great pleasure at my decision to waste good studying time. He has drawn up an enormous timetable that covers most of his side of the room in an effort to cram as many hours of revision as he can into each day. The fellow has even portioned out the minimum amount of times he can chew his food so that he may finish his supper in less than a minute. Every second counts you know, he says. I suppose it makes a change from reminding me that I am supposed to be a gentleman. Now it has become known that I intend to work with Hulme (though how this came about I don't know, when I haven't officially accepted him yet) Norcross has gone so far as to teach me how to tie a cravat. No, I don't want one for my next birthday, Miss Shirley! Though a sturdy pair of reindeer boots might come in handy._

 _You know, Arctic medicine isn't what I thought it might be, but then that will only be part of my job. I'll also run a team of dogs -while I always saw a dog at my fireside one day, I never saw twelve- and live with various Indian tribes, learning how they treat illness in severe climates. In many ways it will be an even smaller life than something I might have found on the Island. Certainly rougher. I'll be looking forward to all the comforts of home when I return to Whitehorse. Mostly I'll be looking forward to wrapping my arms around you. I'm determined to make you proud of me, Anne-girl. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you._

 ** _..._**

 ** _Windy Willows_**

 ** _Spook's Lane_**

 ** _S'side_**

 ** _April 22nd_**

 _Dear Gilbert,_

 _I've just now had an unexpected visitor. Gil, it was your mother. It was Sarah ~she is insisting that I call her that, wonders why I always call her Mrs Blythe. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I've never been invited to call her anything else. But now I have, and she is Sarah, she is dearest, she is sweet little mother. She is not Mam, however, that name belongs only to you and I'm glad. I would begin to feel like your sister if I had to call her that. Oh, forgive me for babbling but I'm so overcome, with happiness at our new found friendship and trepidation about something else. But let's start with the happiness first._

 _It all began this morning. I was out by the Evergreen's letterbox, a hideous thing in the shape of a lion, the poor postman has to put all their letters into its gaping maw. The reason I was there was because I was waiting to see if there was a letter for me or Elizabeth from Paris. It's been nearly two months now, more than enough time for a letter to make it way to France and a reply to make its way to Summerside. Yet nothing comes. I was about to kick that horrid stone lion when who should I see walking up Spook's Lane but your mother. In her best leghorn hat and what looked like a new green coat. She did look lovely, if a little nervous, but that all seemed to melt away when she spied me._

 _Her arms were around me, a little loosely at first, then a new sort of courage overtook her and she made that joyful groaning noise -the one she makes when she squeezes the life out of you- and said, "Anne, dear, what a piece of luck to find you like this."_

 _Before I knew it she was sitting in our cosy parlour. I don't know how it was managed but she had wrangled the teapot from Rebecca herself and began pouring out for everyone -and Rebecca didn't even mind! I always thought you inherited your charms from your father. Now I know better. We had a chat about home, though having been there recently there wasn't much to tell. The only thing that mattered was knowing Marilla is still well, so well in fact she has begun new pillowcases, in whitework, that most tedious and headache-inducing stitch. But I'm rambling again, aren't I? What do you care about whitework. You'll want to know, as I did, exactly why your mother was there._

 _I had to wait for the answer to that. The longer she neglected to explain why she happened to be strolling along Spook's Lane at 10am on a Saturday morning the harder it was for me to ask. Especially with Aunt Kate and Aunt Chatty sitting there with looks on their faces which said, 'You might have told us we were expecting company, lucky for you she's a dear!' Oh and she was, she was the Mrs Blythe ~sorry, the Sarah~ I knew from Before. I'm sure you know which Before I mean. And I wanted to be the Anne from Before too, Gil. But it was hard to be her when I was always waiting to be told why she had come. If I didn't know you had my chemise with you I would have been close to tears I think, expecting her to bring it out at any moment and ask me coolly what I meant by leaving such a garment in her son's bed!_

 _It wasn't until after lunch when I offered to show your mother ~that is, Sarah~ the grove across the lane that she revealed her intentions. And now I come to the real reason for my rambling. Because I cannot reveal why she came without first telling you something about myself._

 _It happened when the Wrights were visiting Allwinds, the afternoon you were due to leave at Easter's end. You were talking with Diana about the efficacy of gripe water or some such, and you took Small Anne-Cordelia and lay her wee body over your shoulder and swept your hand in circles over her back. Your eyes never left Diana and yet the way you held her baby, with such surity and confidence, more than that, with tenderness, spoke less of the doctor and more of the father I always knew you would be. Small Anne made the tiniest sigh and lolloped her black head into your neck with the sort of contentment babies hardly show their own fathers let alone a virtual stranger. Later I told you I was up in your garret seeking out an old quilting pattern. In truth I had snuck away to have a cry. I suppose I was tired, what with being up late the night before and nursing Marilla all hours. I needed a moment to gather myself, and that's when Sarah found me._

 _She simply said, "Oh love is a terrible, wonderful thing."_

 _I nodded and took her handkerchief. I thought she was talking of you. How you'd sacrificed so much for me, not once but many times over. While she had to sit by and watch you dote on an ungrateful wretch. Turns out ~as you Blythes like to say~ she was talking about the both of us._

 _We were walking through my favourite sprucey patch, right where I like to write my letters to you, when she said, "So, Anne, how are we going to talk Gilbert out of this nonsense idea of settling in Yukon?"_

 _You can imagine how surprised I was. Everyone I know is proud of you, to hear it described as nonsense was astonishing. I didn't know what to make of it and I'm afraid my reply was rather frosty. I know she is your mother, Gil, but I wasn't going to let anyone make sport of you. Fortunately, Sarah Blythe is a wise woman._

 _She said, "Anne darling, it is nonsense when you don't want it and neither does he. Oh, he's convinced himself that he does because he believes it's what you expect of him. And I almost believed him, till I saw you that afternoon watching Gilbert with Diana's youngest. You want children, that much is clear. But I also think you want a father who will be with those children every day, not one taken up by work and travel."_

 _"But Gilbert needs to work, he needs to explore," I told her, "And I love every part of him, not just the parts that suit my own self."_

 _"I know you love him. You love my son so much you'd give up everything for his happiness."_

 _She didn't seem to be asking a question so much as discovering an answer. Then she made me promise to write you just as soon as she had gone. She said that she would write too, that she'd written many an interfering letter in her time and didn't mean to stop now. I couldn't help think of my letter to Elizabeth's father, then I thought of the man himself, how he spent so much time away from his daughter they didn't know each other anymore._

 _Oh, Gilbert it would break me if our children felt the same way about you. Writing, exploring, wealth, it means nothing to me if the cost is not having you in my life. You are my adventure. You're the only place I want to go. And when I get there, when I have you, finally, utterly, completely, I don't want to go anywhere else. I want to plant down roots and watch life spring from my fingertips, shelter our children and grow tall with you._

 ** _..._**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond_**

 ** _K'port N.S._**

 ** _22nd April_**

 _Anne,_

 _I don't know how to tell you this except to explain what happened as it happened and hope you understand. Norcross, that is Robin, well, I, he- he accosted me this morning just before chapel, holding your chemise and screaming,_

 _"What are you doing with this? It's mine! How dare you!"_

 _You can imagine how flummoxed I was. I hardly liked to say that the chemise was yours, I couldn't understand how such a mistake could be made. Norcross has no friends, let alone a young woman who might leave such a garment in his room. But I had no chance to respond before the screaming continued in a fashion even less sane than before._

 _"Was this your plan? Your means to get me out of the way? You'd do that to me, ruin my chances out of spite, out of jealousy, because I'm better than you!"_

 _Then he ran. I have to tell you in all my time with Robin Norcross I have never seen him run before. He didn't run like any fellow I'd seen, nor with the grace of you. Truth to tell he ran a good deal like Diana, when we would chase her with frog around the Avonlea school house. That's when I hit me. The small hands. The soft voice. The fact I had never once seen him shave, the fact that he never once looked like he needed to shave though we'd been on 48 hour shifts at Imperial before. I ran too, caught up with him at the boat shed and pinned him to the door._

 _"It's time for you to tell me who you really are," I said._

 _"I'm Robin Norcross, soon to be Dr Robin Norcross, and if you dare to stop me Blythe you'd better hire yourself a professional taster. I'm top of chemistry and pharmacology, I could make you very sick, I could take your life and no one would know-"_

 _I just laughed because I saw then this whole meanspirited act had been exactly that, an act, just as you said, Anne, a way to keep people away._

 _"And I can lift you by your ankle and dangle you over that river till you tell me the truth," I said, "so out with it."  
_

 _Norcross hated that and tried to wriggle away, I thought I would be spat at next. Instead I watched pale blue eyes fill with tears as the most incredible words were uttered.  
_

 _"I am Robin Norcross... Miss Robin Euphemia Norcross. I live with my grandfather near Lake Ontario... He thinks I'm studying nursing."_

 _Anne, I have been living with a woman and I didn't know it. The chances of me passing third year anatomy are mighty low, I'd say. I'm sorry to make a joke but in truth I feel like laughing. All this time Norcross has been pretending to be something she is not. But then so have I._

 _I've spent so much of my life trying to be good enough for you I'm afraid to stop trying. But living away from you when we've already been so long apart would break me. I want to be with you, Anne. More than I want to explore. More than I want to heal. I want to come home to friends and a fire and you. And I want that every day. For the rest of my life. You, in my arms and in my bed and carrying our children. And if that isn't enough for you then you have a right to know it before we marry. Because I don't want you tying yourself to something I'm not. You deserve so much, Anne. You deserve everything. But I know now that can't give you everything. All I can only give you is me._

 _..._

 ** _* First two paragraphs of Anne's March 12th letter to Gilbert taken from ch 9, The Third Year in Anne of Windy Willows_**

 ** _* Sarah's interfering letters feature in the third_ _and fourth years of Redmond Diaries_**

 ** _* 'finally, utterly and completely' is from ch 2 The Windy Willows Love Letters._**

 ** _* the line 'not just the parts that suit my own self' is something Gilbert says all through Diaries and Letters._**

 ** _Thanks for reading, and an especial tip o the hat to Alinya for the goods on teapot etiquette and embroidered impossibilities._**

 ** _The next chapter will be the last. Then I believe I will be hanging up my 19th century Anne and Gilbert hat for a very long while. Thank you for your lovely reviews, especially to all those who have said I have deepened their understanding of Anne and Gilbert. That comment is all I could ever want, and I'm grateful for it!_**

 ** _kwak_**


	10. Harbour and home

**Chapter ten**

 _ **Windy Willows**_

 _ **Spook's Lane**_

 _ **S'side**_

 _ **May 1st**_

 _And all I can give you is me._

 _I can hear you say, No fair, when I have so many Annes to give; the Queen, the Dryad, the writer, the dreamer... To which I will answer that all of them want the same thing. To belong. To be amongst those who are kindred in heart if not in blood and live a good life. That's all I ever wanted. Everything else, the ambition, the imaginings, the writing, were only ways for me to understand what I had to give._

 _You've been wonderfully encouraging, so proud of your authoress. Yet somehow I came to believe that my stories meant nothing unless they were bound in a leather cover and sold in a bookstore. The truth is I wrote Iona for you. It was you I was thinking of as I finished each page, you I wanted to know all my secrets. Iona belongs to you, Gil, not to a publishing house. When I admitted that to myself I knew that the joy I find in writing is not tied up with fame nor success but love. I can't fit my heart into a best selling book anymore than I catch starlight in a jar. Do you know what you get when you try? Emptiness. And that's what I would have if I followed that path, someone who existed to be admired and acknowledged. A bird in a cage. A hothouse orchid. I don't want to be an orchid, forever pinned to fine silks and paraded around balls. I'm a snowdrop, a starflower, a white violet. I want a life that is woodsy and green and sweet when you hold it close. Gilbert, I want an Island life._

 _I have no right to say this when you've already given up Yukon. I don't want you to think you must shrink all your dreams for me. But as a very wise man once said, 'I can't let you tie yourself to someone I'm not.' I belong to my pearl on the sea and whenever I am away from her shores I long for her just as I long for you. If we decide to live somewhere else I will always feel I am treading water. And I can do that, Gil, I am made of stern stuff. But the Island will always be harbour and home._

 _So much for my home. Tell me what has happened to yours, for I can't believe you could be comfortable sharing a room with Miss Norcross. The whole thing is too delicious ~yet tortuous too, to have to live a lie for the sake of a dream. I can't help admire her, though part of me is the tiniest bit jealous that I never thought of it myself. No matter. Norcross might have had you for a year. I have you for the rest of my life!_

 _Isn't that a stupendous thought. I know I can imagine a lot yet this little life of domestic bliss can never seem to fit in my head. It seems too big an idea when really it's the most commonplace occurence in the world. It's you who makes the everyday miraculous, and I love you for it, Gilbert. Of all the gifts you've given to me that is the greatest of all._

 ** _..._**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond_**

 ** _K'port N.S._**

 ** _May 7th_**

 _And it's you who performs miracles everyday. Just when I think I know who you are you turn my world around. Do you truly want to live on the Island? I can't believe I am asking you this, yet it's the most obvious question in the world._

 _When I returned to Avonlea in April I did it for you because I wanted to be there in case the worst should happen. But I did it for myself as well. The closer it came to signing Hulme's contract the more doubts I began to have. I needed reassurance that we really had outgrown our home. I remember you telling me once, back in Redmond days, that Avonlea had begun to feel like a dress you didn't fit anymore. When I saw you valiantly tugging the tam Mam made for you over your head I finally knew what you meant. I saw you being the dutiful daughter, the aunt and the wife-to-be, but I rarely saw my Anne-girl (excepting that night in my room -when I can fairly say I saw too much). I came back to Redmond with your chemise, yet I missed you more than ever. Do you know which Anne I missed? The girl of last December, the one I shared Christmas with. I couldn't get her out of my mind. You were you and yet you were more; as though the land and the wind and the water had come together in the shape of this starry eyed girl. Then I read your words in one of your letters and began to understand. You simply wrote:_

 _The sea, the salt, the smell of snow. I could pretend I was home._

 _I think I knew then where you yearned to be I just couldn't square it with the man I yearned to be for you. I wanted to be known for more than where I came from. The 'Island Boy', like red hair, has come to be a blessing and a curse. I thought I had to go far from her shores in order to do great work and what I discovered, Anne, is that life becomes big or small no matter where you go._

 _I am a doctor, that is a given; a sore throat, a gangrenous leg, a child being born, it amounts to the same thing whether I live in Paris or Whitehorse, or, I don't know- Glen St Mary. Just as many peculiar and intriguing things can happen in a village as can in a town. Take little Freda Flaherty. I could travel to a hundred cities, each one grander than the last and never see another case like the one I discovered on the outskirts of Sarnia. Granted I will never come under the notice of the great and the powerful if I live in some small harbour. But why should the great get the best of me? That best of me belongs to those who have given me the most. That's you, Anne, and my folks, and yes, my Island._

 _Speaking of my folks, I'm bracing myself to open Mam's letter now, though I already know what I'll say. I won't be mentioning Norcross, however, that's going to my grave. I admire her too, though I can't say I like her any better. I'm currently camping out in the attic room. While I hardly mind, I thought she might thank me for keeping her secret and moving out. Yet when I informed her all she said was,  
_

 _'Well, be quick about it, I want to have my bath.'_

 _We're meeting up at the library later, there's another case my uncle would like some advice on. A sailor at the Harbour Head is presenting with a mysterious cluster of symptoms. My guess is Lyme disease but Norcross is convinced it's mercury poisoning..._

 ** _..._**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond_**

 ** _K'port, N.S._**

 ** _June 20th_**

 _Norcross' interview seemed to go well. I say 'seemed' because when I asked whether Hulme offered her the position she glared at me and said, 'What do you think?'_

 _So that leaves me well and truly unemployed. How did it happen, Miss Shirley, that Redmond's best and brightest is the only fellow not to have a position to slide into the moment he graduates? I suppose the hospitals in Charlottetown are always seeking fresh blood, the talented ones are forever being poached by the mainland. But I've had my fill of institutions. The reason I was drawn to working with Hulme was because I could be my own man. I have no interest in rising up the ranks, even less in kowtowing to the egos of surgeons and specialists. I want to make my own way, but how... where?_

 _The question should bother me more than it does. Instead I feel a supreme peace that somehow it will fall into place. That house of dreams we used to talk about, I can almost see it now. Not the materials it is made of or what it looks like inside. It's more that when I close my eyes and think of sharing my life with you I always picture us standing before a window looking out to a swelling sea and a golden beam of light._

 _What I picture next has little to do with that view and more to do with a certain piece of furniture behind us. I did think I wanted to spend our wedding tour travelling the Island in search of that place but that would mean getting out of bed. I tell you, love, if the hotel we find ourselves in should burst into flame I think I would watch it burn around me rather than lose once precious moment lying with you. Touching you. I suspect the only time I'll be able to tear hands away will be to pinch myself._

 _I still can't quite believe it. You love me. And not for what I can give you or for what can I do, but for the Islander I am. Anne, I am scared to be so simple a man, though it's all I want to be. Then I remember that I was scared to love you though you were the only woman I wanted to marry. You made me understand what courage is, and I love you for it, Anne. I love you._

 _I know there'll be people, those who aren't the kindred kind, who will look at us and shake their head and say what a shame, so much promise gone to waste. And then I'll recall what you said all those years ago, on the birthday of our happiness. You took my hand and looked at me and said, 'I don't want marble halls or diamond sunbursts. I just want you.'_

 _Of course I am hoping for work that brings dignity to me and those I serve, and a patch of red earth to call home. But, Anne-girl, the only thing that I could never live without was your love. All I ever wanted is you.  
_

 ** _..._**

 ** _Windy Willows_**

 ** _Spook's Lane_**

 ** _(For the last time)_**

 ** _June 27th_**

 _DEAREST_

 _I've come to another bend in the road. I've written you a good many letters in this tower these past three years. I suppose this is the last one I will write you for a long, long time. Because after this there won't be any need of letters. We'll belong to each other, we'll be together. Just think of it... being together. Talking, walking, eating, dreaming, planning, together. Sharing each other's wonderful moments. Making a home out of our house of dreams. OUR house! Doesn't that sound mystic and wonderful, Gilbert? I've been building dream houses all my life and now one of them is going to come true. As to whom I really want to share my house of dreams with... well I'll tell you that at four o'clock next year._

 _I'm not sorry Little Elizabeth isn't to be our first house guest ~well perhaps just the tiniest bit. Pierce Grayson seems determined to make up for all the happiness her little life has lacked. She thinks she'll miss me madly, but I know the love Elizabeth has for her father will burn in her heart brighter still. I'm so happy for them Gilbert, and relieved. Leaving her at Evergreens would have made this moment more bitter than sweet. But now, though I'm tired out with exams and goodbyes, I feel as though sunlight flows through my veins, as though I could clamber up to that beam of light you see from OUR window and walk straight over to you._

 _This convocation will be rather different to the last, and aren't I glad. Those last days we shared at Redmond were hardly my finest hour. But I plan to make it up to you, Gilbert-Almost-Doctor-Blythe. For one, you shall see a certain heart shaped pendant hanging securely round my neck. And there was a particular dress you liked, was there not? And hair worn down just so? And a dance card with your name for every dance! As for you, dear man, all I ask is NO TOP HAT ~if Norcross is determined not to give up her disguise then you had much better give it to her!_

 _I look forward to finally meeting her, and saying farewell to Katherine. Who would have thought a year ago that she would see the Pyramids while I remained at home? HOME. What a succulent sound that has. MY home ~even better. OUR home ~best of all! It won't surprise you, I'm sure, when I tell you that I have pictured far more than a window ~or a bed. Perhaps picture is the wrong word, because what occurs to me most when I think of us living together is what I shall FEEL. Your laughter going through me, your hands at my waist, the cool of the door as I lock it at night. The satisfying click of the latch will raise a thousand goosebumps, and the light of a lantern will fall on my skin as pure and clean as a moon beam. Then the pad, pad, pad of our feet on the stairs, the squeak of the springs as we leap on our bed. The weight of you upon me; the beloved, sacred weight... The freedom, Gilbert, when we have nothing to stop us and nowhere else to be.  
_

 _Sometimes I let myself dream that after your graduation I steal you away to some secret spot and marry you then and there. There is no Sarah and John in this dream, or Blakes, no Katherine or Robin. Just you and me under a great tree all twilit with shivering stars. There was a line at the Blake's wedding I often recall, spoken softly, each to each. When they had promised all they could to each other they ended with a simple declaration~ 'With my body I thee worship' This is what I long for, Gilbert; to prove with my body what I have vowed before God, to make spirit and flesh become one. The only thing that stops me (besides you, I suspect) is the thought that it wouldn't feel right nor real if we weren't on the Island._

 _The Island is where I met you, where I began to love you, where I knew in my soul you were the only man for me. I couldn't leave her shores anymore than I could wrench myself away from you. You're not just a boy from the Island. You are the Island. You are home._

 _Don't come for me at Phil's, meet me at the gate at Patty's Place ~and yes to a posy of lily-of-the-valley!_

 _Yours forever and ever and ever and ever..._

 _Anne Almost-Blythe_

 ** _..._**

 ** _* the sea, the salt, the smell of snow... from Anne's letter in chapter 8_**

 ** _* the first paragraph from Anne's final letter taken directly from ch 14, The Third Year in Anne of Windy Willows_**

 ** _* 'with my body I thee worship' comes from The Book of Common Prayer. It suddenly occurred to me that Rev Jo is probably Anglican/Episcopalian as his church is named for a saint (and Presbyterians don't do saints)._**

 ** _* Warning! Very boring bit below where kwak goes on kwakishly about things that no one needs to know._**

 ** _Since this is my last letter I did something I never do and switched the facts around a bit. I do not understand why Anne doesn't go to Gilbert's graduation in Anne of Windy Willows and instead waits for him in Avonlea. While story-wise it feels right that they should meet again at their old stomping ground, character-wise it stinks. So I have 'righted' that here and in doing so given the two of them another shot at Convocation. :o) As for where they end up, we all know it's going to be Glen St Mary but the fact that Anne doesn't announce this until August suggests it still wasn't settled in June which is why I don't mention it here._**

 ** _I don't want to say goodbye to these two. I have written about them for three years and I've loved having them live in my head. I've gone from Windy Willows to House of Dreams to Rilla to Anne of the Island and finished with Willows again. It's incredibly satisfying that even though I never intended for these stories to have one coherent narrative I managed it anyway. And I know it's because my understanding of Anne's world was rock solid from the first (even if it isn't to everyone's taste.) This last story was always going to be a challenge because it's all about settling down, and that's hard to make interesting especially when people are disappointed in how small Anne chose to be when she could have been so great. I guess that's why I needed to write Begin Again so I could work out exactly what she might have given up._**

 ** _As to my next story, no I'm not quitting this sphere, not by a long shot. I just wanted to hang up 19th century Anne and try my hand at writing a contemporary version. Why am I doing this? Because writing about the 19th century all the time puts limits on my imagination and I'd like the chance to break free. So if you thought Diaries was strange get ready for uncensored weird.  
_**

 ** _To everyone who has supported me,_**

 ** _"The truth is I wrote these stories for you, it was you I was thinking of as I finished each page, you who I wanted to know all my secrets."_**

 ** _Love you long time,_**

 ** _k._**


End file.
